Overview

Note: For questions about Zendesk products (besides Support), see GDPR: Frequently-asked questions about Zendesk products.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European privacy regulation that aims to strengthen the security and protection of personal data in the European Union. This topic provides answers to questions that customers typically ask about GDPR compliance with Zendesk Support.

Zendesk recommends following this page. As new questions arise, we will update this topic. For more information on GDPR and Zendesk, see EU Data Protection on the Zendesk website.

See the following sections in this topic:

  • Privacy policies and consent
  • Collecting personal data
  • Deleting information
  • Data collection and portability
  • Redaction

Privacy policies and consent

This section covers questions about how to notify users about the new privacy policies.

Can I edit ticket forms to link to our Privacy Notice/Policy?

Yes. When you create a field in a ticket form, like a checkbox, there is an End-user description field. You can put the link to the privacy notice directly in that field. The link will be active for the end-user. See Managing your ticket forms.

Can I use Zendesk Support to contact my end-users about GDPR?

Zendesk Support is not designed as an outbound email campaign provider. You may export user data and then use your email campaign service provider to contact them. Alternatively, you can explore using the Proactive Tickets App (available on the Zendesk Marketplace) to contact your end-users.

What are my GDPR consent obligations for data that I bring into Zendesk from third-party providers (for example, apps or Facebook)?

As the data controller, you are responsible for ensuring that you have the necessary consent from end-users to process their information and share that information with Zendesk.

Correcting personal data

This section covers questions about how to view and correct personal data in Zendesk Support.

How can I provide personal information collected by Zendesk to end-users? How can I update this information?

To update personal data for an end-user or agent, see Viewing a user's profile in Zendesk Support.

  • To change the profile name, click the user’s name.

  • To merge, suspend, delete, or assume the identity of the user, see Deleting Users.

  • To provide personal data to end-users, manually copy the data from the user profile or see Exporting data.

Note: You can also use the Zendesk Users Core API to make updates.

Deleting information

This section covers questions about how to delete tickets, users, and brands in Zendesk Support.

How can I view and delete archived tickets?

Archived tickets don't appear in ticket views but you can still access them in the Support UI. To delete archived tickets, use the Zendesk APIs. First, use the Incremental Exports API to export and query the desired tickets. Then, use the Bulk Delete Tickets API to delete the tickets.

I have multiple brands and some end-users interact with more than one of the brands. Can I delete the end-user for just one of the brands?

Unfortunately, no. Because brand is a ticket metric (not a user metric), deleting a user will delete the user across all brands. This is a known feature request that has been communicated to the Zendesk Support product team.

If I delete an end-user’s profile in Zendesk Support, does this completely delete all their information? Are there any further steps I need to take?

To ensure that all personal data for an end-user is deleted:

  1. Delete all tickets associated with the user. See Deleting Tickets.
  2. Permanently delete the user. See Deleting Users.

When I delete a user’s account details, does this delete any tickets they have submitted? Or, do I have to delete the tickets separately?

Ticket deletion is separate from user deletion. First delete all tickets associated with the user, then delete the user. If you delete the user first, it will be difficult to find tickets associated with the user. See Deleting Tickets and Deleting Users.

Can our end-users unsubscribe from the Help Center without logging in?

Continuing the question... In my company’s Zendesk instance, only end-users with an active account in our product can log in. If a user ends their subscription and forgets to unfollow something in the Help Center, they will continue to get email notifications. How do they unsubscribe from Help?

Contact Zendesk Customer Support. The Zendesk Advocate team will be able to help with this.

Will permanent ticket deletion include deletion of the associated metadata?

Yes, permanent ticket deletion deletes all the data associated with the ticket.

Can I set a retention period so that Zendesk automatically deletes older tickets? For example, after seven years?

Zendesk does not include automated/scheduled deletion in the Phase One of product features for GDPR. However, you can use the Zendesk API to set up business rules. In active accounts, Support tickets remain in the system until you permanently delete them. See Deleting Tickets. In terminated accounts, service data is deleted based on our Zendesk Service Data Deletion Policy.

I tried to comply with GDPR and delete a user. However, some of the user's data remains within the metadata of the Support UI. Can you explain?

If metadata remains after you permanently delete a user, make sure you’ve also deleted all tickets associated with the user. Zendesk recommends first deleting all tickets associated with the user, then deleting the user. See Deleting Tickets and Deleting Users.

Note: When you select a user to delete, the user is not immediately deleted from the system. Instead, the user is queued for deletion as soon as the system can process the request. So if you deleted a user and then immediately opened one of their tickets, there’s a chance you will still see their user information.

If I delete an admin user in Zendesk Support who has been assigned to open and closed tickets, what happens with those tickets?

The open tickets have to be reassigned or closed before you can delete the user. See Forgetting a user in Zendesk.

How does follow-up and verification work for deleted users, tickets?

Related questions include:

  • Will a follow-up to a deleted ticket create a new ticket?
  • Will a follow-up from a deleted user create a new user?
  • Will verification start over if the user is deleted?

The answer is "Yes" to all three questions.

Data collection and portability

This section includes questions about data collection and portability.

How are longitude and latitude collected within Zendesk Support?

The location is based on the IP address of the user who updated the ticket.

How can I export user data?

Related questions include:
  • Can I export all the personal information of a user into JSON format?
  • Can I export a file with data/information about one specific end-user?
  • What are my options to export specific end-user data?

Data export is not enabled in product by default. Contact Zendesk Customer Support to activate it. Use one of the following methods:

  • You can export all user data from the UI. See Exporting data. Once you have exported the data you can open up the exported file and filter for that specific user and their email and delete all other irrelevant user data.

  • You can use the Search Users API and Users API to export individual user data in JSON format.

Can an end-user see or download their email history?

Not in Zendesk Support. You can export the data associated with the user and send that information to them. See response above for details.

Redaction

This section includes questions about redacting personal data.

Can I redact personal data fields that are visible in the Zendesk Support UI?

Use the Ticket Redaction App to redact information contained in tickets (contents and attachments). If additional deletion is needed, you must delete tickets and users. See Deleting Tickets and Deleting Users.

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