Apple recently issued a new policy called Account Deletion. This policy suggests that businesses are obligated to have a method to delete users on their applications if the applications have user creation structures. Apple also states that an application shall delete a user's personal data if they want it deleted. However, this is not obligatory and depends on the application.
For further information, refer to Apple's Offering account deleting on your app page.
This guide aims to answer the following questions:
- When will this policy become effective?
- What is Insider's responsibility?
- How can we delete user data?
When will this policy become effective?
This policy will be effective on 30 June 2022. As of this date, Apple will check whether this policy is in use and will have the right to reject applications from the store in the event of a policy violation.
For further information, refer to Apple's post about account deletion.
What is Insider's responsibility?
App owners are supposed to manage the entire process. Third-party tools, like Insider, are not responsible for detecting user deletion or deciding what data to delete. If they have user creation, app owners shall build this structure inside their applications and determine what data to delete inside the application. Besides, they shall do it via Insider's "delete" capabilities if they want to delete personal data.
How can we delete user data?
App owners can leverage Insider's delete capabilities as a response to Apple's new policy, and can use the following methods to delete user data on Insider:
- Delete User Data API
- Delete User Attribute API
- Unset Custom Attribute via SDK
Delete User Data API
This API allows you to delete all of the user's data. Please note that deleting a user means losing all the related user data on Insider, regardless of the channel. For example, if you are using more than one channel on Insider, all user data will be deleted for the Mobile App and all platforms.
Delete User Attribute API
This API allows you to delete specific user attributes. It is useful if you do not want to delete all user data, but only particular data.
Unset Custom Attribute via SDK
This SDK method allows you to delete specific custom attributes. You can implement these methods if you do not want to delete all of the user data, but only some particular custom attribute data. Depending on your app platform, refer to iOS, React Native, Flutter, or Cordova.