Daniel's Law

What Daniel's Law actually does

If you're a sworn officer, judge, or prosecutor in New Jersey — active or retired — Daniel's Law gives you a hammer. The statute (NJSA §47:1B-1) lets you force brokers to take your home address down.

You can demand any data broker take down your home address and unpublished phone. They get ten business days. Miss the deadline, and it's $1,000 per violation in court.

The law was named for Daniel Anderl, the 20-year-old son of US District Judge Esther Salas, killed in 2020 when an attacker who'd looked up his mother's home address came to the door.

Who it covers

The list expanded in 2023. Today the law covers:

• Active and retired judges (state and federal sitting in NJ)
• Active and retired prosecutors and assistant prosecutors
• Active and retired law enforcement officers (sworn)
• Active and retired correctional officers
• Spouses, parents, and minor children of any of the above living at the same residence

If you fall into any of those categories, you can act. If you're not sure you do, look up your county's Office of the Attorney General — they maintain a covered-person designation process.

How to use it

You don't need a lawyer to send a notice. The mechanics:

1. Write to the broker. Cite NJSA §47:1B-1 et seq. by name. State that you're a covered person.
2. Identify the address and phone number to be removed. Include any old addresses and old phone numbers tied to your name on the broker's site.
3. Demand removal within ten business days.
4. Send by email if the broker publishes a privacy contact. Send by certified mail to the broker's registered agent if you want a paper trail.
5. Save proof of delivery.

If the broker doesn't comply, you have grounds to sue in NJ Superior Court — that's the legal basis to file. The 2023 amendments made the $1,000 per-violation liquidated damages mandatory and added punitive damages for willful or reckless violations. The same amendments let you assign your claim to a third party — that's how Atlas Data Privacy Corp. files batched suits on behalf of thousands of officers. Many brokers comply rather than litigate.

There's also a criminal hook. N.J.S.A. 2C:20-31.1 makes it a crime to disclose covered home addresses or unpublished phone numbers with intent to expose a covered person to harassment or harm. That's a separate path — a prosecutor's call, not yours — but it exists.

Where it has teeth

Atlas Data Privacy Corp. represents thousands of NJ officers. Since the 2023 expansion, they've filed batched Daniel's Law actions against more than 100 data brokers — 37+ consolidated civil cases pending in the District of New Jersey by late 2024. Settlements are confidential, but the volume tells you the law works. Most national brokers now have a dedicated intake process for Daniel's Law requests — a sign they'd rather process the request than face the suit.

The 3rd Circuit upheld the statute against broker First Amendment challenges in 2024. The NJ Supreme Court heard arguments in March 2026 on the scope of the law — what counts as a covered "disclosure," what counts as good-faith compliance. Decision pending. The statute is alive and being enforced while the court works through the edges.

Where it doesn't reach

• Federal court records (PACER): Daniel's Law doesn't bind federal courts. If your home address appeared in a federal court filing, removal goes through the federal records-management process separately.
• Out-of-state brokers with no NJ nexus: Some smaller brokers headquartered abroad or in states with weaker enforcement may ignore notices. The law applies to anyone who sells into NJ, but smaller actors take that as a risk to bet on.
• Property records: Daniel's Law does not require county recorders to remove address information from deed transfers. NJ provides separate property-record protections through ACP — see /states/new-jersey.

Where else this kind of law exists

Daniel's Law was the template. Since 2021, fourteen jurisdictions have passed similar broker-removal statutes. Coverage and teeth vary — most cover only judges, a few go broader. The full list as of 2026:

• New Jersey — N.J.S.A. 47:1B-1 (2021, expanded 2023). Broadest coverage: judges, LEOs, prosecutors, families. The original.
• Federal (Lieu Act) — Pub. L. 117-263 (2022). Federal judges and immediate family only. See /laws/lieu-act.
• Nebraska — Neb. Rev. Stat. §23-3211 (2022). Judges, law enforcement officers, Nebraska National Guard members.
• Missouri — Mo. Rev. Stat. §476.1300 (2023). Active, former, retired judges plus prosecuting and circuit attorneys.
• Delaware — Del. Code tit. 10 §§1921–1924 (2023). State judicial officers and families.
• Florida — Fla. Stat. §119.071 expanded (2024). Judges, LEOs, court staff, firefighters, prosecutors, public defenders, certain state agency personnel, spouses and children.
• Georgia — Ga. Code §§15-5-110 to 15-5-112 (2024). State, county, municipal, and federal judges plus spouses.
• Hawaii — Haw. Rev. Stat. §92H (2024). Governor, legislators, judges, election employees, appointed officials, families.
• Maryland — Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. §3-2301 (2024). Current and retired state and federal judges, magistrates, court commissioners, families.
• New York — N.Y. Jud. Law §859 (2024). Active and former judges and immediate families.
• Oklahoma — Okla. Stat. §3012 (2024). Active and retired state, municipal, county, tribal, and federal judges plus immediate family.
• Minnesota — Minn. Stat. §13.991 (2025). Active, senior, retired judges plus judicial branch employees and referees.
• Wisconsin — Wis. Stat. §757.07 (2025). Current and former state judges, court commissioners, immediate families.
• West Virginia — Daniel's Law (2021). Held facially unconstitutional by Jackson v. Whitepages, N.D. W.Va. (Aug. 2025) for lack of a notice requirement. Legislature is expected to amend.

Most of those analogs cover judges only. New Jersey, Florida, and Nebraska are the ones with first-responder breadth. If you're outside those three, the law in your state probably won't help if you're a patrol officer or firefighter — agency-side public-records exemptions and the federal DPPA are the levers that do.

The 2005 Lefkow case was the older twin of the Anderl attack. Same shape, fifteen years before, before the legal protections that exist now. Both cases drove the legislative argument that produced Daniel's Law and the federal Lieu Act. Cases like these exist because, before the laws, the address-and-photos lookup was trivial and the response was nothing.

What we do here

We file Daniel's Law notices on your behalf. We track every broker's response. When a broker re-lists you (some do, six months later), we notice them again. The law was written to make removal stick; the brokers were not.

When a broker has been noticed twice and still won't comply, the next escalation is the state AG. The broker non-compliance complaint template walks through the evidence package and the filing path. NJ AG is one of the more active offices because of the volume of Daniel's Law cases.

If you're outside New Jersey, see /states for what your state actually gives you.