Delete Your Data

Agenda

You are here to argue, not to be lectured. By the end you will be able to:

• Recall what the 2022 Delete Your Data talk asked you to do, and what was missing.
• Trace the four moves — find, dispute, delete, prove — from awareness to shipped code.
• Read the attorney-gate and the telemetry trust boundary in the real repository.
• Decide whether to try it, fork it, or point someone who needs it at it.

2022 — a map, drawn by hand

The original talk made one argument: everyone is discoverable, you can find what is out there about yourself, and you can do something about it. It was a map and a to-do list — go look, then file removals one at a time.

You have a file you never opened

Data brokers, people-search sites, and tenant-screening bureaus assemble a file on you from public records and buy-and-sell feeds. It follows you into a loan, a lease, and a hire — and it is often wrong.

The footprint is a threat model

Reducing your footprint is not vanity. A smaller footprint shrinks the surface for doxxing, SIM-swap social engineering, and stalkerware — and it is a right you can exercise, not just a setting you toggle.

Find, dispute, delete, prove

The 2022 to-do list became four modular moves: find what is out there, dispute what is wrong, delete what we hold, and prove the record. Each is a step you can run on its own.

Dispute — an attorney on the report

Neon Law Nautilus puts a licensed attorney on the report for a flat fee. We dispute the inaccurate items with the bureau under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which requires a reinvestigation within 30 days.

Delete — a client can only ask

Deletion is not a button that erases on click. A client can request deletion; a staff attorney authorizes it, and the executed expunge writes an audit record of what was removed and who approved it.

From store/src/expunge_requests.rs:

//! A client can only *ask*: [`create`] inserts a `pending` row. A
//! Owner/Admin/Staff then resolves it — [`authorize`] (after running the
//! admin-gated expunge, passing the resulting audit-row id) or
//! [`deny`]. The executed expunge is always category `client_request`.

The trust boundary is structural

The system that helps you delete your data is built not to expose it. The telemetry rule is structural, not a policy memo: identifiers and counts, never client content.

From mcp/src/tools — the rule the whole codebase enforces: a notation_id, a service name, an outcome, a duration, and a status code may enter a span or a log. A client name, an answer body, an email address, or a document body may not.

Operated by the Foundation

Neon Law Navigator is owned by Shook Law PLLC. The Neon Law Foundation runs cases and teaching on it under a perpetual, royalty-free license. Access to justice is the reason the product exists — attorney-run workflows, not a public software distribution program.

Prove it without disclosing it

Neon Law Node records an attestation on Solana — our wallet, your wallet, and a SHA-256 hash of the signed letter. The letter stays private; only the fingerprint goes on-chain, so you can show it existed without revealing it.