The Basics
Under the GDPR, if individuals wish to have all their data deleted from your database, they may simply wish to not be contacted by your organization, or they may be exercising their "Right to be forgotten". It is important to understand what the individual's wishes are. In each case, you can either make sure their data is deleted completely from the system, or you can de-identify/pseudonymize the contact or “hash” the contact, so that there is no way for them to be accidentally re-added into your system and the system knows to not let individuals contact them. This can be achieved in Beamery through hashing/pseudonymization. The customer needs to decide whether they want to delete the contacts data in its entirety and run the risk of adding the individual back to the Beamery system. Alternatively they can hash the data so they can comply with the individuals wishes. We find this acceptable practice under GDPR to ensure an individual's requests have the functional ability to be complied with.
When a contact is hashed, most of their data is deleted from the Beamery database. Beamery retains the following data points upon anonymization:
| Data Retained in Order to Prevent Re-adding the Same Contact in the Future | System Metadata (not PII) |
|---|---|
| 'emails' | 'archivedAt' |
| 'links' | 'updatedAt' |
| 'integrations' | 'assignedTo' |
| LinkedIn Match Members | 'status' |
| 'creationSource' | |
| 'createdAt' | |
| 'mergedWith' | |
| 'mergedIn | |
| 'doNotCampaign' | |
| 'confidential' | |
| 'confidentiality' | |
| 'version' |
Note: Only Super Admins, Sourcing Admins, and Marketing Admins can hash contacts.
In this article we will cover how to hash a contact manually. To learn how to automatically hash contacts via automation, click here.
Anonymizing a Contact Profile
Start by navigating to the contact profile you wish to hash. You can use filters in the People grid or search for a specific contact.
Once you have located the contact profile, click on the vertical ellipses in the top right corner of the profile to expand the profile options. Then choose Data privacy settings.
This will bring up the Data Privacy Settings window where you can choose how you wish to store this contact's data. To hash a contact, choose Anonymized on this screen and then click Save.
The contact will be removed from the "People Grid" and will no longer be searchable. You will only see the profile if you navigate to the profile URL or attempt to manually re-add the contact into Beamery with:
- the same email address
- the same social media links
At which time you will be redirected to the hashed version of the profile.
You will also be redirected to the same hashed profile if you have the contact’s Beamery profile URL. The profile is still accessible via the URL. If a contact was anonymized by mistake, or has asked to be contacted again, you can bring them back by deleting the anonymized contact and creating a new one. The previous record is not restored.
Re-consent through Convert flows and Portals: When a candidate re-consents through a flow and matches an anonymized record, the Beamery deletes the anonymized contact and creates a new one, rather than restoring the previous record.
Who can Hash Contacts?
Only users with Super Admin, Sourcing Admin and Marketing Admin access can hash contacts.
Bringing an anonymized contact back
Anonymization cannot be reversed. This protects candidates. Once someone exercises their right to be forgotten, their data cannot quietly be brought back into your database.
What anonymization still does: It keeps the minimal record listed in the table above so the same person cannot be accidentally re-added, and it blocks creating a new contact with the same email, phone number, or social links.
If you need to bring a contact back (for example, they were anonymized by mistake, or they have asked to be contacted again), Super Admins only can delete the anonymized contact and create a new one. There is no un-anonymize option.
Deleting and recreating does not restore contact data. The new contact starts clean. No profile data, activity history, message cards, or campaign history from the previous record is brought back. This is different from the old re-identify behavior, which restored the name, email, social links, activity card, and campaign history.