YouTrack Cloud 2024.1 Help

Anonymize User Data

User data anonymization has been implemented to support the right to erasure or "right to be forgotten" as outlined in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for data subjects who reside in the European Union. Should a user request that you erase his or her personal data, use this operation as an alternative to deleting the user account.

When you anonymize a user account, the personal data associated with the account is sanitized in such a way that is no longer identifiable. The full name, email addresses, usernames, login details, profile change history, and IP addresses are replaced with random values.

To anonymize the personal data for a user:

  1. From the Administration menu, select Access Management > Users.

  2. Click the name of the user that you want to anonymize in the list.

    • The user profile page opens.

  3. Click the Anonymize user button in the header.

    • The Anonymize User dialog opens.

      Anonymize user confirmation dialog
  4. Enter the username of the user to be anonymized in the input field.

  5. Click the Anonymize button.

    • The personal data for the user is replaced with random values.

    • The anonymized profile is shown in a read-only state and cannot be changed.

    • The anonymized user can no longer use this account to log in to YouTrack.

    Anonymized user

Anonymization does not remove the user account from YouTrack. The account remains in the system. Any licenses that have been allocated to the anonymized user are still granted to the account. As a final step, you may want to ban the user account and free up these license allocations or revoke the license directly in the Hub account of the anonymized user. For instructions, see Ban User Accounts.

Anonymized Users

When a user account has been anonymized, the full name is shown as Anonymous and the username is replaced with a random value. Input fields for storing personal data are presented as read-only. Any user who has permission to view user accounts in Hub experiences this account in the same way.

YouTrack will also anonymize the full names and usernames for users who don't have the Read User Basic permission. For users without permission to view user profile data, the full name is shown as Anonymized1234 where 1234 is replaced with a random number. The usernames are anonymized in a similar way.

A user account that has been anonymized by the system.

Unlike user accounts that have been permanently anonymized, users who have permission to view user profile data can see the actual first name and username.

Last modified: 08 March 2024