PSA Security Project

Disrupting the Data-to-Violence Pipeline:
How Existing State Consumer Privacy Laws Fail America’s Public Servants

by Justin Sherman, Interim Vice President of the PSA Security Project

February 2026

Executive Summary

Violent threats against America’s public servants are escalating, a problem exacerbated by the widespread availability, aggregation, and sale of their personal data, which facilitates doxxing and physical violence.

This report analyzes 19 state comprehensive consumer privacy laws and finds them overwhelmingly weak in protecting public servants from these data-related harms.

Specifically, zero of the laws grant public servants the right to legally compel state agencies to redact their personal data from public records, nor the right to compel data brokers to stop selling that data once it’s been acquired from public records. While all 19 laws offer some limited rights to opt out of the sale of data acquired from private sources, and California’s system is the strongest with its new Delete Request and Opt-Out Platform (DROP), none of the laws provide a broad private right of action for violations, and all fail to cover public records information.

To meaningfully reduce this “data-to-violence pipeline,” state privacy laws must be strengthened with protections that adequately tackle public records privacy, the relationship between personal data and interpersonal violence, and the protection of First Amendment-related activities alongside safeguards for people’s physical safety.

This report recommends four key changes in state privacy regimes: (1) broadening coverage to all public servants; (2) requiring personal data takedowns within 10 days of a request to a data broker or government agency; (3) including private data sources and public records in the scope of protection; and (4) incorporating a broad private right of action to ensure accountability. This nuanced approach is essential to better protect the millions of Americans who have chosen to serve their communities and their country.

Read the Full Report