Maryland data privacy and data broker removal

Maryland has a comprehensive privacy law that gives you the right to access, delete, and control your personal data. Here's how those rights work in practice, and how to get yourself off the data brokers that trade in it.

Your rights in Maryland

Maryland residents are protected by the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act (MODPA).

• Access and know: request a copy of the personal information a company holds about you.
• Correct: fix inaccurate personal information.
• Delete: ask a company to delete your personal information.
• Data portability: get your data in a portable format you can take elsewhere.
• Opt out of sale: tell a company to stop selling your personal information.
• Opt out of targeted advertising: stop companies from targeting ads at you based on your data.
• Opt out of profiling: stop companies from building a behavioral profile about you.
• Know who got your data: get a list of the categories of third parties your data was disclosed to.
• Appeal: challenge a company's decision to deny your request.

Does this cover the company that has my data?

Probably. MODPA applies to any business that controls or processes the personal data of at least 35,000 Maryland residents (not counting data used only to complete a payment), or at least 10,000 residents if it earns more than 20% of its revenue from selling personal data. Its exemptions are narrow: there's no blanket carve-out for health-regulated entities and only a limited nonprofit exception, so it reaches more businesses than most state privacy laws.

How to remove yourself from data brokers in Maryland

Your state law gives you the right to request deletion. The hard part is exercising it everywhere your information shows up. Here are the most effective steps, in order.

1. Enable Global Privacy Control

Global Privacy Control is a free browser setting that automatically tells every website you visit not to sell or share your data. It takes about two minutes to turn on and then works in the background on every site. Maryland law requires covered businesses to honor it, so it carries legal weight, not just a polite request.

2. Submit direct opt-out requests

For companies that Global Privacy Control doesn't reach, you can file requests one at a time. Look for the "Do not sell my personal information" link in the website footer; most major brokers have one. You can also send formal access, deletion, or correction requests through each company's privacy policy page.

Under Maryland's law, covered companies have to respond within the statutory deadline. If they don't, you have grounds to file a complaint with the Maryland Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division.

3. Keep it removed

Here's the part nobody tells you: even after you finish every step above, brokers rebuild your profile from public records, data-sharing networks, and commercial databases. Within a few months, the listings come back. Staying off isn't a one-time task; it's ongoing work that's hard to keep up by hand.

Maryland's data broker law: what it means for you

Maryland doesn't have a dedicated data-broker registry. Many national brokers register in California and will honor opt-out requests from residents of any state, but without a Maryland law requiring it, you have little recourse if a broker ignores you. We don't work from a fixed list of sites: our scan searches the open internet for wherever your information shows up, then handles the removals across states and brokers in one place.

Other privacy protections in Maryland

Beyond the comprehensive privacy law, Maryland has protections that may apply to you:

• Safe at Home address confidentiality: the state's program gives survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking, sexual assault, and stalking a substitute address to use in place of their real one, keeping their location off public records. The Office of the Secretary of State runs it.
• Biometric data: Maryland has no standalone biometric statute you can sue under, but biometric data counts as sensitive data under MODPA, so its extra protections apply and the Attorney General enforces them.

How to file a privacy complaint in Maryland

File with the Maryland Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division: marylandattorneygeneral.gov

State agencies mostly enforce privacy laws in the aggregate: they investigate patterns of violations rather than resolving individual disputes. Filing still matters, because it creates a record that helps trigger enforcement.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• epic.org
• lewisrice.com
• cooley.com
• dwt.com