Daniel's Law

What Daniel's Law does

Daniel's Law is a New Jersey statute (NJSA §47:1B-1) that lets covered public servants demand that data brokers take down their home address and unpublished phone number, and sue if the broker refuses. If you're a sworn officer, judge, or prosecutor in New Jersey, active or retired, you qualify.

You send the broker a written demand. They get ten business days to remove the information. Miss the deadline, and you can take them to court for $1,000 per violation. The 2023 amendment made that $1,000 mandatory liquidated damages, not a cap, plus punitive damages when the violation is willful or reckless.

The law is named for Daniel Anderl, the 20-year-old son of US District Judge Esther Salas, killed in 2020 when a man who had looked up his mother's home address came to the door. The attacker, a disgruntled litigant, had bought the address from a commercial broker. New Jersey enacted the law within months.

Who it covers

The list expanded with the 2023 amendment. Today the law covers:

• Active and retired judges, state and federal, sitting in NJ
• Active and retired prosecutors and assistant prosecutors
• Active and retired sworn law enforcement officers
• Active and retired correctional officers
• Child protective investigators in the Division of Child Protection and Permanency
• Spouses, domestic partners, 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, the NJ Daniel's Law portal FAQ walks the eligibility checks. Active personnel verify through their employing agency. Retirees verify through their pension records.

How to use it

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

1. Find the listing. Pull the exact URL where your address or phone shows. A scan (run a free one) gives you the broker list and the live URLs.
2. Write the notice. Cite NJSA §47:1B-1 et seq. by name. State that you're a covered person under the statute. Don't claim a category you don't qualify for. A false claim gets the notice tossed.
3. Identify the data. Address, unpublished phone, prior addresses tied to your name. Be precise. Vague notices give the broker an out.
4. Demand removal in ten business days. The clock starts on the broker's receipt of the notice, not on the postmark. That distinction matters at trial.
5. Send it. Email if the broker publishes a privacy contact. Use certified mail to the registered agent if you want a delivery receipt that holds up in court.
6. Save proof. Sent timestamp, delivery receipt, any reply, and a dated screenshot of the listing on day eleven if it's still live.

Use the Daniel's Law demand letter template if you want a drafted version to sign and send.

If the broker doesn't comply, you have grounds to sue in NJ Superior Court. The 2023 amendment also added an assignment right. You can transfer your claim to a third party that handles the litigation. 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. It's a third-degree felony if the disclosure leads to bodily injury. That's a separate path. It's a prosecutor's decision, not yours, but it exists.

Sample notice language

A working notice doesn't have to be long. The four pieces it must contain:

• "I am a covered person under N.J.S.A. 47:1B-1 et seq. as a [active/retired sworn law enforcement officer / prosecutor / judge / immediate family member of a covered person]."
• "You are publishing my [home address / unpublished home telephone number] at the following URL: [exact URL]."
• "I demand removal of this information within ten (10) business days of your receipt of this notice, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 47:1B-1 et seq."
• "Failure to comply will result in a civil action for liquidated damages of $1,000 per violation, plus reasonable attorneys' fees, costs, and punitive damages where applicable."

Sign it, date it, and send it. The full template is downloadable on the demand letter page.

How it's being enforced

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. By late 2024 there were 37+ consolidated civil cases pending in the District of New Jersey alone. Settlements are confidential. The volume shows brokers take the statute seriously. Most national brokers now run a dedicated intake process for Daniel's Law requests because that's cheaper than defending the suits.

A federal district court in New Jersey upheld the statute against the brokers' First Amendment challenge in Atlas Data Privacy Corp. v. We Inform LLC. In November 2024 it denied their motions to dismiss. The court found the state's interest in protecting officers and judges from targeted violence concrete. The law reaches home address and unpublished phone, not speech of public concern. The brokers appealed. The Third Circuit heard argument in July 2025 and asked the New Jersey Supreme Court for guidance, so the constitutional question is still pending on appeal.

The New Jersey Supreme Court heard oral arguments in March 2026 on who counts as a "covered person" and what triggers the statutory-damages clock. The court is expected to clarify whether each republication is a separate violation, what counts as good-faith compliance, and whether a broker that takes down a record but leaves cached data live still owes damages. A decision is pending. The statute is alive and being enforced while the court works through the edges.

State legislators floated S-3527 in late 2025 to cap the per-violation damages, framed as litigation reform. Judge Salas pushed back publicly through Reuters in April 2026, and the cap has not advanced. The statute as written stands.

Retirees, families, and edge cases

A few common questions.

Retirees. Coverage is the same as active. The 2023 amendment confirmed "formerly active or retired" status. A retired officer, ten years off the job, keeps the right to file.

Spouses, parents, minor children. Covered if they live at the same residence as the covered person. A divorced ex-spouse who has moved out is not covered. Coverage depends on sharing the home, so an adult child living elsewhere is not covered either.

Firefighters and EMS. Not covered under Daniel's Law itself. NJ first responders outside law enforcement, judges, or corrections rely on OPRA exemptions and the broader DPPA. If you're a firefighter or EMS in NJ and want a state-level broker remedy, the statute as currently written doesn't reach you.

Out-of-state filings. Daniel's Law applies to anyone publishing into NJ, regardless of where the broker is incorporated. A Delaware or California broker that sells access to NJ residents is bound. Practical reach against offshore brokers is weaker. The suit is filed in NJ Superior Court, but collecting on a foreign judgment is harder. Most national brokers keep NJ counsel on retainer, so the practical reach is broad.

Federal court records (PACER). Daniel's Law doesn't bind federal courts. If your home address appeared in a federal filing, removal goes through the federal records-management process separately.

Property records. Daniel's Law does not require county recorders to remove address information from deed transfers. NJ provides separate property-record protections through the ACP and through OPRA exemptions under P.L. 2024, c.16. See /states/new-jersey for the layered approach.

What if the broker re-lists you

This is the most common failure mode. A broker takes down the listing on day eight, then six months later a new data feed re-lists you from a fresh ingest. Each re-publication is a separate violation. The ten-day clock starts over each time. Document the re-listing with a dated screenshot, send the notice again, and add the second listing to any existing claim.

If a broker re-lists you twice after acknowledged removal, that's a stronger willfulness argument for punitive damages. Save every removal confirmation email. The timeline is your evidence.

Where it doesn't reach

• Federal court records (PACER). The federal records-management process applies. See /laws/lieu-act.
• Out-of-state brokers with no NJ nexus. Some smaller brokers headquartered abroad may ignore notices. The law applies to anyone who sells into NJ, but smaller actors take that as a risk.
• Property records. County recorders and assessors are not covered. Daniel's Law does not require redaction from deed transfers.
• Information you publicly published yourself. If your address shows in your own social media or business filing, the broker has a defense.

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, and 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, and Nebraska National Guard members.
• Missouri: Mo. Rev. Stat. §476.1300 (2023). Active, former, and 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, and families.
• Maryland: Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. §3-2301 (2024). Current and retired state and federal judges, magistrates, court commissioners, and 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, and retired judges plus judicial branch employees and referees.
• Wisconsin: Wis. Stat. §757.07 (2025). Current and former state judges, court commissioners, and 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. The legislature is expected to amend. See /incidents/west-virginia-officer-whitepages-suit-2024 for the case backstory.

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 and work patrol or fire, the law in your state probably won't help. Agency-side public-records exemptions and the federal DPPA are the levers that do.

The 2005 Lefkow case in Chicago followed the same pattern fifteen years before Anderl, when none of these legal protections existed. Both cases drove the legislative argument that produced Daniel's Law and the federal Lieu Act. Before these laws, looking up a judge's or officer's home address was trivial, and there was no removal remedy.

What we do here

Frontline Privacy files Daniel's Law notices for you. We track each broker's response. Brokers sometimes re-list you months later from a fresh data feed, so removal doesn't always stay. When that happens, we file the notice again. This runs through the Frontline Privacy plan for individual covered persons.

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. The 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.