Protecting customer data
This page is for everyone in a partner company. Partners handle personal data of customers and of their customers' users. The partnership must never become a way that data leaks. This page sets practical rules; the law that applies to you (for example data protection law in your country or your customer's) decides the details.
The rules
- Share only what is needed. A ticket needs the error, not the customer's user list.
- Placeholders in public. In issues, forums, chats and screenshots, replace names, e-mail addresses, private URLs
and host names with placeholders such as
customer-site.example. - Consent for leads and references. Pass a person's contact details to another party only with their consent (Referrals and leads).
- No production data in test and training. Staging copies are anonymized; training uses invented test accounts.
- No personal data in activity logs. Evidence for points is a public URL and a description (Logging your partner activity).
- Delete when done. Exports, dumps and screenshots are deleted after use.
Where data leaks in practice
| Place | Risk | Prevention |
|---|---|---|
| Support tickets and bug issues | Logs with e-mail addresses, session ids | Clean logs before pasting (Opening a partner support ticket) |
| Screenshots | Names in lists, user menus | Use a test account; blur or crop |
| Database dumps for debugging | Whole user tables | Share a reproduction, not a dump |
| Staging copies | Real users' data on a weaker server | Anonymize; protect staging like production |
| Case studies | Names and quotes without approval | Written approval (Writing a case study) |
| Shared leads | Contact data passed on without consent | Consent recorded first |
Contracts
- Agree with each customer who processes which data for what purpose.
- If 7x or another partner works on the site for you (white label, subcontracting), they are part of that chain; name them as your law requires (White-label 7x services).
Checklist
- To do: Staff trained on these rules
- To do: Placeholders used in every public post
- To do: Staging anonymized
- To do: Consent records for leads and references
- To do: Deletion routine for exports and dumps
Related pages
- Security responsibilities of partners
- Partner code of conduct
- Security hardening
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.