Privacy & GDPR Compliance

FormForge includes built-in tools for GDPR compliance, giving you control over data retention, sensitive field redaction, subject access requests, and the right to erasure. These features help you meet your obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation without building custom solutions.

Data Retention

Data retention lets you automatically delete old submissions after a specified number of days. This is useful for forms that collect time-sensitive data (e.g. event registrations, support requests) where you have no legal basis to store submissions indefinitely.

How it works

1. Open a form in the backoffice and navigate to Settings.
2. Set the Retention Period to the number of days you want to keep submissions. Leave it empty to keep submissions indefinitely.
3. Submissions (and their associated uploaded files) older than the retention period are automatically and permanently deleted.

Examples

Sensitive Fields

Mark individual form fields as sensitive to restrict who can see their values in the backoffice. Users without the right permission see redacted values instead of the real data.

How it works

1. In the form builder, select a field and enable the Sensitive toggle. Use this for fields containing personal data such as phone numbers, addresses, or payment references.
2. When a backoffice user views submissions, FormForge checks whether they have the “Sensitive data” user group in Umbraco.
3. Users without the permission see ****** instead of the actual field value.
4. Users with the permission see the real value.

Where redaction applies

• Submission listing in the backoffice
• Submission detail view
• CSV export (the same “Sensitive data” user group is enforced)

Recommended use cases

• Phone numbers
• Postal addresses
• Payment references or transaction IDs
• National identification numbers
• Health or financial information
• Any field where you want to restrict visibility to authorized personnel only

SAR Search

Subject Access Requests (SARs) are a core GDPR right. When an individual requests access to their personal data, you need to find all form submissions that contain information about them. FormForge provides a dedicated search tool for this.

How it works

1. In the backoffice, navigate to the FormForge section and open the GDPR panel.
2. Enter a search term (e.g. an email address, name, phone number, or IP address) and run the search.
3. FormForge searches all field values across all form submissions using a case-insensitive match.
4. Any submission where at least one field value contains the search term is returned, with full submission data and metadata.

Authorization

SAR Search requires the Umbraco “Sensitive data” user group. Users without this permission cannot access the GDPR search functionality.

Right to Erasure

The right to erasure (also known as the “right to be forgotten”) allows individuals to request the deletion of their personal data. FormForge lets you find and delete all matching submissions in a single operation.

How it works

1. In the GDPR panel, search for the data subject using the same search as SAR Search.
2. Review the matching submissions to verify the scope of the request.
3. Click Erase to permanently delete all matching submissions, including any associated uploaded files.
4. The operation is recorded in the audit trail for your compliance records.

Authorization

Erasure requires the Umbraco “Sensitive data” user group. Users without this permission cannot perform erasure operations.

Recommended Workflow

1. Receive an erasure request from a data subject.
2. Use SAR Search to identify all matching submissions and verify the scope of the request.
3. Export or document the search results if needed for your internal records.
4. Perform the erasure to permanently delete all matching data.
5. Confirm the deletion count matches the expected number of records.
6. Notify the data subject that their data has been erased.