If you have opened an account and signed a Client Agreement with Wealthfront, the company states it generally cannot delete your personal information, even if you ask, because financial regulations require them to keep records.
This analysis describes what Wealthfront's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
This provision directly limits a right that many consumers expect to exercise, particularly California residents under CCPA, and means that becoming a full Client rather than a free User significantly narrows your data control options.
Interpretive note: The breadth of the retention obligation as applied to all Client data categories is not fully specified; some data types may not be subject to mandatory retention under applicable regulations, and GLBA preemption of state deletion rights is a contested legal question.
Severity downgraded from high to medium, and specific regulatory justification language was added explaining the rationale for deletion restrictions.
View full change record →Clients who request deletion of their personal data, including Social Security numbers, financial account information, and investment records, will generally be told this cannot be accommodated due to regulatory requirements, effectively making data deletion unavailable for active and former Clients.
How other platforms handle this
We keep information for as long as we need it to provide our products, comply with legal obligations, or for other legitimate purposes, such as to maintain safety, security, and integrity.
After your account is deleted, we keep data about interactions you've had on our service to prevent abuse, ban evaders and others in an effort to protect and ensure the safety and security of our service and our members.
At Ledger, earning and maintaining our users' trust is a top priority. That's why we are deeply committed not only to protecting your privacy and securing your personal data, but also to being fully transparent about how we handle it.
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Wealthfront has changed this document before.
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"Client Deletion Requests. In connection with separate regulatory recordkeeping obligations imposed on Wealthfront, we generally must maintain and cannot delete Personal Information associated with our Clients.— Excerpt from Wealthfront's Wealthfront Privacy Policy
(1) REGULATORY LANDSCAPE: This provision directly engages the intersection of CCPA deletion rights and GLBA/Regulation S-P recordkeeping exemptions. CCPA contains a carve-out for data retained to comply with legal obligations, which Wealthfront appears to be invoking here. The SEC and FINRA impose recordkeeping obligations on registered investment advisers and broker-dealers respectively. The California Privacy Protection Agency and California AG are the primary enforcement authorities for any disputed deletion requests. (2) GOVERNANCE EXPOSURE: Medium-High. The blanket assertion that Client data 'generally must be maintained and cannot be deleted' may be overbroad in some instances, as not all Client data categories are necessarily subject to mandatory retention under GLBA or SEC rules. Applying this restriction uniformly without data-category-level mapping could expose Wealthfront to challenge if regulators find that some data was withheld from deletion without a valid legal basis. (3) JURISDICTION FLAGS: California creates heightened exposure given CCPA's explicit deletion rights and enforcement posture. The GLBA preemption of state privacy laws in this context is a legally contested area and should not be assumed to resolve all state-law deletion claims in Wealthfront's favor. Illinois, New York, and other states with financial privacy or consumer protection statutes may also create independent obligations. (4) CONTRACT AND VENDOR IMPLICATIONS: Client agreements should clearly disclose the deletion limitation at onboarding to avoid consumer surprise or dispute. Vendor contracts with data processors should align on retention schedules to ensure that processors are not retaining Client data beyond regulatory minimums on their own infrastructure. (5) COMPLIANCE CONSIDERATIONS: Legal teams should maintain a granular data retention schedule mapped to specific regulatory obligations (e.g., SEC Rule 17a-4, FINRA Rule 4511) to support defensible deletion denials. A process for responding to deletion requests with specific regulatory citations, rather than a general regulatory reference, would reduce enforcement risk.
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This provision directly limits a right that many consumers expect to exercise, particularly California residents under CCPA, and means that becoming a full Client rather than a free User significantly narrows your data control options.
Clients who request deletion of their personal data, including Social Security numbers, financial account information, and investment records, will generally be told this cannot be accommodated due to regulatory requirements, effectively making data deletion unavailable for active and former Clients.
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