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A California consumer’s request for a copy of personal data should not be mistaken for a request to erase it. Yet in WIRED senior writer Reece Rogers’s 2026 account of filing more than 100 requests, some companies’ replies showed how easily that distinction can break down in practice. The examples reveal friction—not an industry-wide failure rate—and a published request channel does not guarantee that a request will be handled as intended.
What an access request asks a company to do
An access request asks a company for a copy of personal information it holds about you. It is different from asking the company to delete that information or to opt you out of the sale or sharing of personal information. Rogers says he made that distinction explicit in his requests. WIRED’s August 28, 2026 report describes his experience under California consumer privacy law; it is not individualized legal advice.
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Making a request can involve locating the company’s process and completing identity checks. WIRED says the response period can be as long as 45 days. That is the feature’s description of the timeline, not a complete statement of current legal rules or every deadline that may apply.
What happened in the reported requests
Rogers filed more than 100 requests, but the feature is a first-person account, not a representative audit. Its examples illustrate different kinds of friction; they cannot establish how often companies mishandle requests across the industry.
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| Company | What Rogers reported | How the company responded, according to WIRED |
|---|---|---|
| McDonald’s | He received a 515-page report detailing app interactions and including a prediction about his future engagement. | The report is Rogers’s account of the document he received; it does not establish what every customer receives. |
| Crunchbase | He asked for access and said he was not requesting deletion. | A representative reportedly said his account had been deleted. Crunchbase later described that as a processing error and said it would proceed with the access request. |
| BeenVerified | Replies focused on removing his information from search results, followed by a disagreement about identity verification. | Greg Hammond, senior counsel and senior director of compliance at the parent company, said an agent misunderstood the request. He said refresher training and an audit were planned. |
| Cash App | Phone agents did not successfully process his access request, although the privacy policy listed phone support as an available method. | A spokesperson pointed to in-app access or deletion as a faster way to verify identity. The spokesperson did not answer a follow-up about why the phone number appeared in the policy. |
The examples differ: one produced a detailed response, while others involved confusion over request type, identity checks, or whether a listed channel worked. The report does not provide comparable outcomes for every request or a measured rate of successful handling.
Why a published channel may not be enough
A privacy policy can tell consumers where to submit a request, but the reported Cash App experience shows the practical gap that can arise when a listed method does not lead to successful processing. The Crunchbase and BeenVerified examples point to a separate risk: a request can be routed or interpreted as deletion or removal even when the person asks for access.
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Identity verification can also complicate the process. A company may need to confirm that it is responding to the right person, but consumers still need a clear path to submit the request they actually intend to make. In Rogers’s account, finding channels and handling verification added work to an already time-consuming task.
What the reporting does—and does not—show
The reported count of more than 100 requests is not a representative sample, and the feature does not calculate an industry-wide mishandling rate. Its value is in documenting concrete failure modes alongside an unusually extensive response, not in proving that most companies respond in a particular way.
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Advocates cited in the feature argue that data minimization—collecting less personal information in the first place—could reduce the burden on consumers seeking to find out what companies hold. That is a proposed systemic remedy, not an impact measured by Rogers’s reporting. Ben Winters, director of AI and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, said: “That’s not an acceptable status quo.”
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