Montana data privacy and data broker removal

Montana law gives you the right to access, delete, and control your personal data. Here is how those rights work in practice, and how to get yourself out of the data brokers that trade it.

Your rights in Montana

Montana residents are protected by the Montana Consumer Data Privacy Act (MCDPA). It gives you eight rights over the personal data companies hold about you.

• Right to access and know. Request a copy of the personal information a company holds about you.
• Right to correct. Ask a company to fix inaccurate personal information.
• Right to delete. Ask a company to delete your personal information.
• Right to data portability. Get your data in a portable format you can take elsewhere.
• Right to opt out of sale. Tell a company to stop selling your personal information.
• Right to opt out of targeted advertising. Stop ad targeting based on your personal data.
• Right to opt out of profiling. Stop companies from building a behavioral profile that drives significant decisions about you.
• Right to appeal. Challenge a company's denial of your privacy request.

Does this cover the company that has my data?

Most companies that collect or sell personal data in Montana are likely covered. A company falls under the law if it does business in Montana and meets either threshold:

• Controls or processes the personal data of 25,000 or more consumers, or
• Controls or processes the data of 15,000 or more consumers and makes over 25% of its revenue from selling personal data.

How to remove yourself from data brokers in Montana

Your state law gives you the right to request deletion, but exercising it across every site that holds your information takes real effort. Here are the most effective steps, in order.

1. Enable Global Privacy Control

Global Privacy Control is a free browser setting that 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. Montana law requires covered businesses to honor it, so this carries legal weight, not just a polite request.

2. Submit direct opt-out requests

You can also file requests directly. Look for the "Do not sell my personal information" link in a company's website footer; most major brokers have one. You can submit formal access, deletion, or correction requests through each company's privacy policy page.

Covered companies must respond within Montana's statutory deadline. If one doesn't, you have grounds to file a complaint with the Montana attorney general.

3. Automate ongoing removal

Here is the part nobody tells you: even after you finish every step above, brokers re-ingest your information from public records, data-sharing networks, and commercial databases. Within a few months, your profiles reappear. Staying removed is not a one-time task. It is ongoing work that is hard to keep up by hand.

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

Montana does not have a dedicated data-broker registry. Most national data brokers are registered in California and will honor opt-out requests from residents of any state. But without a Montana-specific broker law, you have little legal recourse if one ignores your request. Delist handles these requests across the sites that hold your information, in one place.

Other privacy protections in Montana

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

• An Address Confidentiality Program for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking, administered by the Montana Department of Justice.
• Stronger protections for minors, added by SB 297.
• Biometric data. Montana has no standalone biometric statute with a private right of action; biometric data is treated as sensitive data under the MCDPA instead.

How to file a privacy complaint in Montana

File with the Montana Office of Consumer Protection, part of the Department of Justice: dojmt.gov/consumer.

Most state agencies enforce privacy laws in the aggregate: they investigate patterns of violations rather than resolving individual disputes. Filing still matters. It creates a record that helps trigger enforcement.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• leg.mt.gov
• dojmt.gov
• huschblackwell.com