Processes for export and deletion requests, soft-deletes with recovery windows, background job processing, and audit trails to meet GDPR/CCPA needs.
When a customer asks you to delete their data — or when a regulator requires you to export it — you need a reliable, auditable, and safe way to do it. This feature covers the tools and processes for handling data export and deletion requests: how they're submitted, how they're processed in the background, how progress is tracked, and how mistakes can be recovered from. It's built with compliance regulations like GDPR and CCPA in mind, where the right to erasure and data portability aren't optional.
Data privacy regulations are no longer just a concern for large enterprises — they apply to any company processing personal data from EU or California residents, among others. Getting this wrong carries real financial and reputational risk.
A privacy officer or administrator submits an export or deletion request through the admin UI or API. The system creates a job record and immediately acknowledges it.
The job runs in the background — there's no need to keep a browser window open. The system:
- Works through the affected data in small batches, not all at once
- Respects per-organization rate limits so large jobs don't overload the database
- Continuously updates progress so you can check the status at any time
When data is marked for deletion, it immediately disappears from all user-facing interfaces — no one can access it. But for a short window (configurable based on your policy), the data can be fully restored by an administrator if it was deleted by mistake. After that window closes, the data is permanently and irreversibly removed.
When a data export is requested, the system packages the relevant data into a secure, encrypted file and makes it available for download. Access to the export file is restricted to authorized administrators and is logged.
You're not left wondering whether a job completed. The dashboard shows:
- Current status: queued, running, completed, or failed
- Progress percentage: how much has been processed so far
- Estimated completion time
- Any errors: if some items couldn't be processed, they're flagged for manual review
Large jobs can also send email notifications when they complete or encounter a problem.
If you need to stop a job mid-way — say, you realize a deletion request was made in error — you can cancel it from the dashboard. Any data already processed won't be automatically undone (that would create its own risks), but you can restore specific items from within the recovery window.
Every action is recorded:
- Who submitted the request and when
- What data was affected
- What the outcome was
- Who accessed any exported files
This audit trail is itself retained according to your compliance policy and can be exported for regulatory review.
The team is building:
Once live, you'll have a complete, compliant data management system that you can confidently demonstrate to customers and regulators alike.