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Data Deletion for Marketing Cloud

Delete customers’ personal data when it’s necessary to comply with various data protection and privacy regulations. We give you examples of common requests and things to consider. That way, you can determine a plan of action for complying with the regulations that apply to you.

Many data protection and privacy regulations can require you to delete customers’ personal data when customers request it, or when it’s no longer necessary to keep it. We’ve listed a few of the regulations that are important to many companies collecting and processing their customers’ data. If you have customers or users who want the data that you’ve collected on them deleted, review these common requests and the procedures related to them.

  • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), European Union
  • Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), Japan
  • Privacy Act, Australia
Note
Note Before you delete contact data from Marketing Cloud, export the list or data extension containing the deleted contact information for later review and regulatory compliance proof.
  • Review any ENS subscriptions that contain engagement events.
Common Customer Request Actions to Consider Things to Consider
How do I delete specific contacts from my account?
  • Export basic ID information from a list or data extensions before you begin any deletion process. Save this information in a location where you don’t process data for future reference. This data helps ensure that you don’t accidentally reimport deleted data.
  • Delete contacts in Contact Builder.
  • Use the delete calls for contacts in the Marketing Cloud REST API.
  • To delete data from Audience Studio, use these tools.

  • Ensure that this functionality is available to your account by contacting your Marketing Cloud account representative. This feature applies to these apps:

    • Marketing Cloud Advertising
    • Audience Builder
    • Contact Builder
    • Email Studio
    • GroupConnect
    • Journey Builder
    • MobileConnect
    • MobilePush
    • Setup
  • If you delete subscriber information from Email Studio, that deletion applies only to the Email Studio Channel. To fully delete all contact information from Marketing Cloud, delete the contact record in Contact Builder using Contact Delete.
  • Contact Delete processes these values during the suppression and deletion phases:
    • ContactKey or SubscriberKey
    • ContactID or SubscriberID
  • If you add a contact with the same ContactKey or SubscriberKey but different ContactID or SubscriberID, you can introduce a deleted contact back into your system as a new entry with a new SubscriberID, and without previous statistics, clicks, or other personal data. We recommend retaining a list of deleted ContactKey and SubscriberKey values to prevent this reintroduction into your system.
  • We recommend that Marketing Cloud Connect users delete information from Sales or Service clouds first, then delete information from Marketing Cloud. Use API calls to delete contact information from triggered send lists, Salesforce legacy lists, or Microsoft Dynamics CRM lists.
  • We recommend that Marketing Cloud users that use Audience Studio or Personalization Builder delete information from Marketing Cloud first, then Audience Studio or Personalization Builder.
  • Audience Builder removes deleted contacts during the regularly scheduled data load automation. This process creates an automation in Automation Studio with the name of AB-<YourEID>-Contact Delete Program. This step prevents the inclusion of those contacts in new audiences. Audience Builder also removes related usage data, data from sendable data extensions, and non-sendable data deleted manually from data extensions in Contact Builder at this time. Allow 24 hours for this deletion to fully process. You may see information from suppressed or deleted contacts in Audience Builder until the 24-hour deletion process fully completes.
  • Audience Builder users deleting contacts via the Contact Delete API must set the TrackChanges parameter to true to remove deletions upon the regularly scheduled data load automation.
  • Email Recommendations, Web Recommendations, and Web and Mobile Analytics use separate app and API interfaces to delete contact information. One request to any product in this group affects all products. You can make Do Not Track and Do Not Profile preferences available in a customer profile center.
  • Einstein products accessed via the Marketing Cloud include Einstein Engagement Scoring, Send Time Optimization, and Einstein Engagement Frequency. When you terminate your contract or delete email and subscriber data for one or more subscribers, the data these features use is removed completely within the following 90 days. This data is excluded from analysis as soon as is feasible. You can make Do Not Track and Do Not Profile preferences available in a customer profile center.
  • When you delete a contact record for one or more subscribers within Marketing Cloud, any personal information for those contacts is removed from Intelligence Reports within the following 90 days.
  • To remove Interaction Studio data from sendable data extensions stored in Marketing Cloud, delete contacts in Contact Builder. You’re responsible for removing any related information from other data sources, such as non-sendable data extensions, FTP uploads, and data extracts. You must also remove data from inside Interaction Studio.
  • You’re responsible for deleting applicable contact information from these sources:
    • FTP - Remove contact data from any stored files
    • Databases
    • Spreadsheets
    • Non-sendable data extensions - Use data retention policies or make the data extensions sendable to ensure that the Contact Delete process applies to those data extensions.
    • Send logs
    • Data emitted to your callback endpoint via Event Notification Services.
  • To implement data retention policies for existing data extensions, create a data extension with the appropriate policy. Next, import the data from the old data extension to the new data extension. You can then delete the old data extension. Update any automated processes using the old data extension with the new data extension.
  • Refrain from using deleted contacts as the subject of a test send to avoid accidental sends.
  • If you change a data extension to a sendable data extension after performing a Contact Delete request, the process doesn’t include that data extension.
  • We delete contact keys from a contact record from other contact records as well, such as removing a parent’s email address from a child’s contact record.
  • Delete contact information from all accounts, including those accounts used for testing.

  • If a MobilePush data subject makes a data compliance request via Marketing Cloud, we send a silent push to the customer app to indicate the applicable change. The MobilePush SDK also makes the customer app check in daily for data compliance changes. If Marketing Cloud sends the silent push and the device doesn’t process it before the next check-in, the device may not comply with regulations until the check-in occurs.

  • After a Right to Be Forgotten request takes place, the data subject can opt in to further processing by deleting and reinstalling the customer app.
  • If the IP address is collected, when a contact is deleted, the IP address is deleted and can’t be used to track back to the contact.
How do I access my account data within 90 days of contract cancellation? You can log in to your account for 90 days to export data via the user interface or the API.
  • Marketing Cloud begins deletion of all customer information in an account 120 days after contract cancellation.
  • After 90 days, you can’t renew access to data.
  • A new account can’t access data from the previous account.
How do I stop all automations in my account within 90 days of contract cancellation? Stop all automations not used to export data or capture unsubscribes. This step prevents activities that could add new data to your account.
How do I unpublish all web-based materials in my account within 90 days of contract cancellation? Don’t unpublish or pause pages used to capture unsubscribe requests. These pages record the unsubscribe requests that you need to retain.
How do I stop all inbound and outbound activities not related to data export in my account within 90 days after contract cancellation?
  • Stop all inbound data not used to capture unsubscribes, such as opt-in activities for email, SMS, and push messages.
  • Stop all outbound data transmission not used to export data, such as scheduled messaging sends or data exports.
  • Uninstall all third-party API integrations not used to export data or capture unsubscribes.
  • Delete all custom API integrations not used to export data or capture unsubscribes.
  • API functionality depends on what you implemented for your account. Don’t stop API functionality used to capture unsubscribe requests.
  • Marketing Cloud doesn’t send or process triggered sends to suppressed or deleted contacts.
How do I handle a deletion request for data from a social media platform that is stored in Social Studio? For Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, Social Studio inherits deletion requests for public data from the applicable social network. For those social networks, data subjects must request deletion from the social networks, and Social Studio inherits those changes. Private data, such as direct messages, from these social networks can be deleted by customers directly in the Social Studio platform. But these deletions don’t flow through to the applicable social networks. For deletion requests for other social networks, contact your Marketing Cloud account representative.
How do I delete a user’s personal information stored in a Marketing Cloud Intelligence account? Contact your Marketing Cloud Intelligence account representative.  
How do I delete data from Marketing Cloud Intelligence?
  1. Go to the Connect & Mix tab.
  2. Click Delete Data.
  3. Select the data streams from which you would like to delete data.
  4. Select the date range for the data that you would like to delete.
 In Data Lakes, use the Delete Data tab. Delete rows from Data Lakes. Alternatively, you can delink the data, which allows the data to remain in Data Lakes but replaces certain field values with other values to make the data anonymous.
How do I delete a data stream from Marketing Cloud Intelligence?
  1. Go to the Data Streams List.
  2. Select the data streams to delete.
  3. Click Delete.
 After you delete a data stream it goes to the Workspace Bin. To permanently delete a data stream, delete it from the Workspace Bin also.
When is my data deleted from Marketing Cloud Intelligence after contract cancellation? You can export data from your Marketing Cloud Intelligence account only while the account is active. After the contract is canceled or expires, the access is lost and the data can no longer be exported. Marketing Cloud Intelligence begins deletion of all customer information in an account 90 days after contract cancellation.

Data protection and privacy compliance can require you to encrypt all data during transit. We recommend taking these steps to ensure compliance.

See Also