Opened 12 months ago
#59479 new defect (bug)
'Erase Personal Data' simply doesn't work
Reported by: | kingfisherwebdev | Owned by: | |
---|---|---|---|
Milestone: | Awaiting Review | Priority: | normal |
Severity: | critical | Version: | 6.3.1 |
Component: | Privacy | Keywords: | |
Focuses: | Cc: |
Description
Here's the steps:
- Set up a fresh WordPress install on my local machine
- Add a new subscriber user to that WordPress install
- Go to 'Export Personal Data'
- Put in an export request without requiring email confirmation
- Click on 'download personal data' on the new request entry
- Open the downloaded content and confirm that there are fields that need to be deleted listed in 'export.json'. There are. These fields include: 'User Nice Name', 'User Email', 'User Display Name'
- Go to 'Erase Personal Data'
- Add a new erasure request without requiring confirmation
- Click 'erase personal data' on the new erasure item
- Get the message 'No personal data was found for this user'
Looking at the user's profile does show that nothing was erased or anonymized.
Per https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/tools-erase-personal-data-screen/:
'To confirm what data will be erased by this tool, Go to Tools > Export Personal Data from Administration Screens, and export Personal data.'
None of the items that were in the export were erased. The line in that doc doesn't make sense, as the export includes the user's username, which will definitely not be erased.
I have replicated this behavior on other hosted sites. There's something wrong with either the tool, the docs, or the feedback from WordPress. Please let me know where I'm going wrong, or if this is actually something that needs fixing.