[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #44258: Inconsistency in Export and Erase Personal data behavior

[WordPress Trac]

#44258: Inconsistency in Export and Erase Personal data behavior
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 Reporter:  subrataemfluence  |       Owner:  (none)
     Type:  defect (bug)      |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal            |   Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Privacy           |     Version:  4.9.6
 Severity:  normal            |  Resolution:
 Keywords:                    |     Focuses:  administration
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Comment (by xkon):

 Hi @subrataemfluence!

 Allow me to add some context here as all the privacy-related tickets do
 have long discussions over slack most of the time that can't easily be
 tracked.

 Let me first say that yes Exporters will show personal data but that isn't
 always the same as what is erased due to some of the data even if personal
 needs to be kept.

 When the erasers were built, we agreed that core wouldn't touch the user
 profile by default. On some occasions, data from the profile might be
 needed to be kept for other legal issues.

 Since comments live on their own tables and relationships in the database
 we're able to anonymize them as they keep their own data in their tables
 i.e. "comment_author", "comment_author_email" and so on.

 Media files, on the other hand, are living under posts that are bound to
 users and since we are not changing anything in the profile then the
 uploader name continues to show.

 Do note that any plugin that might be handling attachments from users
 could add it's own erasers in any way that seems fit, but core can't
 handle this by design (at least at the moment) as attachments are
 essentially posts.

 I'll cc @azaozz here for an extra comment since the only way to be able to
 properly anonymize Media by default would require changes first on how
 core handles them which would bring other long discussions and tickets :D
 (I'm not even sure if we would like to go down that road at the moment).

 Overall this can be considered as "intended behavior" at the moment.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/44258#comment:6>
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