Just wondering if it would be possible to replicate the Opt Out link in the invitation system and modify it to a Delete me link (I would want both of these in emails going forwards)

The introduction of the new GDPR legislation in Europe means we have to give respondents a right to have their data removed from electronic files / storage, the opt out works well meaning that no reminders will be set and I can see in the participant database the people who use this. If there is a way to have that database updated with DeleteMe then this would save time and remove a complex process of emails and deletions from the outset.

Is it possible to copy and then modify the Opt Out link to do this?

Thanks

davebostockgmail wrote: The introduction of the new GDPR legislation in Europe means we have to give respondents a right to have their data removed from electronic files / storage, the opt out works well meaning that no reminders will be set and I can see in the participant database the people who use this.

Respondents will have the right to get every data related to them exported too. So the panel data, participants data and all answers in all surveys they answered non-anonymous need to be made available too.

The deleting of answers have to be done too. If the survey is expired, LS is still containing these answers. If you export these answers, you still have to delete these answers in the raw data.

I haven't seen any official statement of LimeSurvey GmbH about how they handle GDPR/EU-DSGVO on LimeSurvey and their hosting platform LimeSurvey Pro.

I know that this is a requirement and I can do that in the database if needed.
This was more a question of convenience ... although not a lot about this new legislation is convenient.

davebostockgmail wrote: I know that this is a requirement and I can do that in the database if needed.

Your question is important and not answered with my post. The impact of GDPR might be underestimated. I don't see a easy workaround available here. I don't think customers of the LimeSurvey Pro Hosting have direct access to the database. They will need a solution too.

Just wondering if there would be a way to copy the Opt Out functionality to replicate the behaviour and have it say "Delete" in the email status that would act in the same way ... not sending reminders. I would be happy for now to put a manual link in the invitation / reminder email to offer this up to the recipient.

As Jelo mentioned, this is going to become more important after May 25th when the GDPR legislation comes into effect and will effectively be a legal requirement.

At the moment we are using a "reply to this email to exercise your right to erasure" workaround which is not ideal as it means a manual check on the inbox to ensure we comply.

I have no information about what LimeSurvey GmbH (core developers) are preparing to reach GDPR compliance. A privacy policy textbox and URL link text was added to LimeSurvey core in the last weeks.

There is a pullrequest from an independent developer, which implement functionality to remove/reduce data in compliance with GDPR. This code is offered to be part of LimeSurvey core.
You can follow the discusssion here:
github.com/LimeSurvey/LimeSurvey/pull/1021

To be honest, it is annoying, but I have my doubts that it will actually create a lot of additional work anyway. I personally do not expect many requests of that sort. First of all, usually in surveys we do not collect hidden data. This means people already know what they have sent us.
Of course, there are some people who will want to exercise this right and that is fine, but I wouldn't expect too many requests. We always offered in our surveys that people can delete their given data on request and I can't recall ANY request of those. Of course, now that it is an official right, this might change, but I guess if you have 10 cases or so per year it will be a lot. Of course I can be wrong and of course this always depends a little on what type of surveys you are running. But I don't think there is a reason to panic right now, especially if you are self hosting and have access to the database.

Don't get me wrong: this is an important topic and needs to be addressed (and there needs to be a convenient solution in LS on the long run), I just wanted to say that I don't see that there will be a lot of additional work coming up, as I don't expect a lot of requests.

I guess it is all a matter of scale and purpose ... I work for a full service market research company and whilst LS surveys are a small part of our business it could be problematic....

Scale : Last month we worked on a project for a major U.K. retailer and sent around 350,000 invites out to a survey hosted on LS .. to which we got around 20K completes ... and an additional 6K opt outs flagged (not sure if these would have been a delete request if the option was there) so even if there was say 20% of those that took the delete option this would mean 1200 emails to be delt with.

Purpose : We are members of the MRS (Market Research Society) and ESOMAR (European equivalent) and to remain members we have to be fully compliant with the legislation and offer up the right to erase to anyone we contact, so it is an issue if we cannot fulfill this to scale.

I may be an outlier on this ... so I was looking if there was a quick and dirty way to copy the opt out process by copying the OptoutController.php and modifying the limereplacementfields.php to come up with a way to replicate the process and save time and effort.

davebostockgmail wrote: Scale : Last month we worked on a project for a major U.K. retailer and sent around 350,000 invites out to a survey hosted on LS .. to which we got around 20K completes ... and an additional 6K opt outs flagged (not sure if these would have been a delete request if the option was there) so even if there was say 20% of those that took the delete option this would mean 1200 emails to be delt with.

Good point. As I said it always depends on what type of surveys you run. Of course if you are running surveys on this scale and based on client lists, there is a lot more risk to get those requests. We usually run adhoc surveys with of course a lot smaller samples and mostly not with client lists, so our approaches are different.

However, given this volume you probably already have more budget and workforce...

Purpose : We are members of the MRS (Market Research Society) and ESOMAR (European equivalent) and to remain members we have to be fully compliant with the legislation and offer up the right to erase to anyone we contact, so it is an issue if we cannot fulfill this to scale.

Well, I think anyone who is running surveys should comply with this anyway. We have done a lot of it at least in theory already (not in practice as I said, because I can't recall any request).

I may be an outlier on this ... so I was looking if there was a quick and dirty way to copy the opt out process by copying the OptoutController.php and modifying the limereplacementfields.php to come up with a way to replicate the process and save time and effort.

I think it is important to discuss. Outlier or not, we need to discuss this and need to find a solution that makes it easy to comply. Because it shouldn't be soo difficult to implement this into LS (or any other survey software).

I think this would be an important feature request: compliance with the new legislation. I think this should be priority in the next weeks, to make sure we are basically there when the legislation is in effect.

I am not sure if the developers of the Limesurvey GmbH are fully aware of what will be necessary, so it would be good if we can have a brain storming here and create a list of what is necessary to be compliant and then create a feature request.

holch wrote: However, given this volume you probably already have more budget and workforce...

If only this was true ....... The workforce for this is me ... and the budget is "Try to save as much cash as possible"