Permanent deletion of users

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Article 17 provides data subjects (i.e. your users) with the right to erasure, also known as the ‘right to be forgotten’. By default, when users are deleted in Good Grants, they are "soft deleted", meaning their user account is moved to a kind of "trash can" where it can be retrieved if necessary. So, that's not permanent erasure, nor forgotten.

If one of your users requests permanent deletion or it is a requirement to delete users annually in your region, follow the steps outlined below. 

Permanent deletion of an individual user

1. From the Manage workspace, go to Users
2. Find the user record by searching/filtering and click through to their user record
3. On the first Profile tab, there is a button to Delete this user permanently...
   
   
4. Select which deletion option is required (explained below)
   
5. To avoid accidental deletion, you need to manually enter in the full name of the user as confirmation of the delete
6. Press the Delete button to finalise

Bulk permanent deletion

1. In the Manage workspace, navigate to Users
2. Click the checkbox next to the users that need to be permanently deleted
   
   Tip: set the page visibility to 100 users to permanently delete up to 100 users at a time.
3. Open the Action drop-down
4. Select Delete permanently
   
   
5. Select which deletion option applies
   
6. Key in your password
7. Delete

Deletion options

Depending on the stage your season/program is at when you permanently delete a user, there may be application data and reviewing data for that user. You're obliged to delete the user's personal data, but you may wish to retain the reviewing data associated with the user, to maintain the integrity of review results. Furthermore, depending on the terms of your program, the content of the user's application (other than personal data) may be able to be retained by you. To deal with all these considerations, you have three options for how to treat permanent deletion:

Option 1: wipe user data, keep user's applications, keep reviewing data

• All the user's personal data is permanently deleted from your account *
• The user's applications are retained, completely intact, but the reference to the applicant's user account is removed
• All reviewing data (assignments, scores, comments) related to the application is retained and still reflected in leaderboards
• Reviewing of the user's application can still continue if necessary

Option 2: wipe user data, wipe user's applications, keep reviewing data

• All the user's personal data is permanently deleted from your account *
• All the content of the user's applications is permanently deleted, but a pseudonymised "shell" of the application remains, for reviewing data to relate to. The applications will still show up in Manage applications and in Leaderboards, etc, but the application name is replaced with the slug (8-letter code)
• All reviewing data (assignments, scores, comments) related to the application is retained and still reflected in leaderboards
• Reviewing of the user's applications could still continue if necessary, in theory, but the reviewers will see nothing of the user's applications

Option 3: wipe user data, delete user's applications, delete reviewing data

• All the user's personal data is permanently deleted from your account *
• All the user's applications are permanently deleted from your account
• All the reviewing data related to the user's applications are permanently deleted
• Results for these applications will disappear from reviewing views and from leaderboards