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Reviewing Account Deletion Requests

When a church has a Directory Approval Group configured, account deletion no longer happens instantly — a member's request becomes a task that your approval group reviews before anything is removed. This page explains how the request is made, how to approve or decline it, and what happens in each case.

Before You Begin

  • A Directory Approval Group must be configured under Mobile → Member portal. Without one, clicking Delete my account on the Profile page still deletes the account immediately, with no review step. See Mobile App Settings.
  • Approving or declining a request requires the People > Edit permission.

How a Member Requests Deletion​

Account deletion is requested from the My Profile page — the same shared account page covered in Managing Your Profile — under its Account Deletion section. When an approval group is configured, confirming the request does not delete anything right away. Instead it:

  1. Creates an open task titled "Account deletion request", assigned to the Directory Approval Group, under Serving → Tasks.
  2. Disables the Delete my account button for that person and shows a notice that the request is awaiting review.

Submitting a second request while one is already open just reopens the same task — a person can only have one pending deletion request at a time.

Reviewing a Request​

  1. Go to Serving → Tasks (or Assigned to My Groups on your dashboard, the same place profile change requests appear).
  2. Open the task titled "Account deletion request from Name".
  3. You'll see two actions: Approve deletion and Decline.

Approving​

Confirm "Permanently anonymize this person's record and remove their login? This cannot be undone." This replaces the person's personal information with generic values (the same anonymization used by the Data Management > Anonymize action on a person's record — see Data Security) and removes their login. The task closes automatically, and the member is notified that their request was approved.

Declining​

Declining requires a reason, because GDPR only allows refusing an erasure request for a legal exception:

  • Legal retention (donations, tax, or employment records)
  • Needed for a legal claim
  • Other — explain in the text box (at least 10 characters)

The member is notified of the decision along with the reason you gave, and may resubmit their request or escalate to a supervisory authority if they disagree.

info

Churches have 30 days to respond to a deletion request. The task is due in 28 days, and the approval group gets automatic reminders if it's still open after 21 and 27 days.

tip

Deletion and profile-change requests use the same Directory Approval Group and the same Tasks-based review flow — see Approving Profile Changes if you also need to review directory update requests.