Data Portability for Heroku

Your customers can request a copy of the data we received from them. To work toward complying with various data protection and privacy regulations, export the data and pack it up. We’ve given you examples of common customer requests and things to consider. That way, you can determine how best to work toward complying with the regulations that apply to your company.

Required Editions

Available in: All Editions

Some laws require you and your company to let customers take their data with them. We’ve listed a few of the obligations that are important to many companies collecting and processing their customers’ data.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), European Union
Customer Contracts

If you have customers or users who want to take the data that you’ve received from them, review these common requests. We’ve provided links to the procedures related to those requests.

Common Customer Request	Actions to Consider	Things to Consider
A user wants to review or export the account information they’ve submitted to our application.	Heroku Services give you the ability to fully manage the development, design, and functionality of applications you deploy. Using Heroku Services, you can develop application-layer functionality that allows your application’s end users to access, review, and export data submitted to your application. In addition to developing application-layer functionality, your organization might consider leveraging the following data export features available for Heroku managed add-ons. Heroku Postgres provides the following data export features for selected Heroku Postgres plans. Heroku Postgres Dataclips allow your organization to generate a URL that can be accessed to download selected data in various formats. Database backups can be generated using Heroku PGBackups and/or your organization can leverage the pg_dump PostgresSQL tool to generate backups. Heroku Connect can be used to synchronize Heroku Postgres data to an existing Salesforce Services org. Heroku Redis is not intended for long-term data persistence. Your organization should store data you wish to persist in Heroku Postgres and leverage the Heroku Postgres data export capabilities described previously. Heroku Kafka includes support for Kafka Consumers that your organization can utilize to export data to Heroku Postgres or to external systems. Your organization can also request full copies of sensitive data submitted to Heroku Services by visiting Heroku Support.	What data do you want to make portable and what data format best suits your customer’s needs? What data do you want to provide customers? Is there any data that you have the right to withhold from customers? Does any data need to be redacted, such as third-party confidential information? Review your terms of service with your customer.
How do I export logs generated by applications our organization deploys to Heroku Services that might contain our users' personal data?	Heroku’s Logplex is designed for collating and routing log messages, not for storage of log data on a longer term basis. Logplex keeps a minimum number of lines of consolidated logs that expire after 1 week. Your organization can choose to drain logs to a drain service provided by a third-party add-on or implement your own log drain to gain additional control over your logs. Shield Private Spaces also includes the feature Private Space Logging which enables you to configure log capture at the space level instead of the app level. This feature allows your organization to forward all log events from applications and Heroku system services in the space to a single external log capture destination as described in the documentation.	Work with your legal team to ensure that you have the appropriate contractual terms in place with the provider of the add-on. Also make sure that you have the right processes to help manage your GDPR compliance obligations when using the add-on. If the Shield Private Spaces feature Private Space Logging is utilized, then logs are not stored within Heroku Services.

Common Customer Request

Actions to Consider

Things to Consider

A user wants to review or export the account information they’ve submitted to our application.

Heroku Services give you the ability to fully manage the development, design, and functionality of applications you deploy. Using Heroku Services, you can develop application-layer functionality that allows your application’s end users to access, review, and export data submitted to your application.

In addition to developing application-layer functionality, your organization might consider leveraging the following data export features available for Heroku managed add-ons.

Heroku Postgres provides the following data export features for selected Heroku Postgres plans.

Heroku Postgres Dataclips allow your organization to generate a URL that can be accessed to download selected data in various formats.
Database backups can be generated using Heroku PGBackups and/or your organization can leverage the pg_dump PostgresSQL tool to generate backups.
Heroku Connect can be used to synchronize Heroku Postgres data to an existing Salesforce Services org.

Heroku Redis is not intended for long-term data persistence. Your organization should store data you wish to persist in Heroku Postgres and leverage the Heroku Postgres data export capabilities described previously.

Heroku Kafka includes support for Kafka Consumers that your organization can utilize to export data to Heroku Postgres or to external systems.

Your organization can also request full copies of sensitive data submitted to Heroku Services by visiting Heroku Support.

What data do you want to make portable and what data format best suits your customer’s needs?
What data do you want to provide customers?
Is there any data that you have the right to withhold from customers?
Does any data need to be redacted, such as third-party confidential information?
Review your terms of service with your customer.

How do I export logs generated by applications our organization deploys to Heroku Services that might contain our users' personal data?

Heroku’s Logplex is designed for collating and routing log messages, not for storage of log data on a longer term basis. Logplex keeps a minimum number of lines of consolidated logs that expire after 1 week. Your organization can choose to drain logs to a drain service provided by a third-party add-on or implement your own log drain to gain additional control over your logs.

Shield Private Spaces also includes the feature Private Space Logging which enables you to configure log capture at the space level instead of the app level. This feature allows your organization to forward all log events from applications and Heroku system services in the space to a single external log capture destination as described in the documentation.

Work with your legal team to ensure that you have the appropriate contractual terms in place with the provider of the add-on. Also make sure that you have the right processes to help manage your GDPR compliance obligations when using the add-on.

If the Shield Private Spaces feature Private Space Logging is utilized, then logs are not stored within Heroku Services.