Overview

The Light Agent role in Zendesk has the following permission regarding “Customer Lists” (the page under /agent/user_filters):

"View user profile lists
Can search for users by name, email address, phone number, or organization. Doesn't affect their ability to add end users or edit their profiles."

Light Agents can therefore search and find end-users by name and email address. This permission is currently non-editable, which also means Administrators cannot restrict Light Agents from viewing customer lists entirely, or at least following the role's configured ticket access.

Problem

The inability to edit this permission means that Light Agents can access all end-user profiles in the account, regardless of their ticket access: while they may not be able to access a given user's tickets, they can access the user profile. This includes email addresses, phone numbers, and other sensitive information, creating a data governance challenge, especially for organizations that operate multiple brands and/or handle sensitive customer information.

Last time affected

This issue has been ongoing and affects anyone using the Light Agent role with a strict segmentation need regarding user access across Brands.

With the upcoming release of Department Spaces, there is an expectation that data access will be further segmented. However, this does not currently appear to cover the issue of Light Agents being able to access Customer Lists… It remains unclear if the feature will fully resolve this concern.

Current workaround

None. One can use a full agent seat in crucial scenarios, but this defeats the purpose of using the Light Agent role, so it isn't really a workaround.

Potential solution(s)

Make the "View user profile lists" permission for Light Agents editable so that Admins can restrict access to customer lists
Connect ticket access permissions to user profile access. I.e. if a Light Agent can only access tickets within their Groups, they can't access user profiles of requesters whose submitted tickets are outside these Groups

Thanks in advance for considering this request!