Question
Why does a profile still appear in Segment's profile explorer after a GDPR deletion request shows "Success" in the Segment Console?
Product
Segment
Environment
Segment Console
Answer
Segment's deletion process requires the user_id to match the profile for deletion to occur. If only an email or anonymousId is used and no corresponding user_id exists, the profile will not be deleted and will continue to appear in the explorer. Deletion requests by any identifier other than user_id are not supported.
A profile will remain visible in the profile explorer after a GDPR deletion request shows "Success" if the request was submitted using an identifier other than user_id. The "Success" in this case is simply indicating that we have guaranteed that there is no user with a matching user_id to the value you provided in the deletion request. For example: If you enter "test@segment.com" in the deletion request, the "Success" will indicate that we can guarantee that we have no user with "user_id"="test@segment.com"
To ensure deletion, assign a user_id to the profile via the API and submit the deletion request using that identifier.
Additional Information
If you can't add a user_id to the profiles you need to delete, you may also contact Segment support team for further assistance, in which you should provide the following data in the ticket:
- List of anonymousIds to delete
- Time range (inclusive or exclusive start/end dates)
- The sourceIds that ingested that data for those anonymousIds