# GDPR and privacy
Companies conducting business within the European Union are legally required to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
While many aspects of this regulation may not significantly affect your integration with Stream, the GDPR provisions regarding the right to data access and the right to erasure are directly pertinent. These provisions relate to data that is stored and managed on Stream's servers.
Because of this, Stream provides a set of methods that make complying with those portions of the law easy. They work the same way for every Stream product.
## The Right to Access Data
GDPR gives EU citizens the right to request access to their information and the right to have access to this information in a portable format. Stream covers this requirement with the Export Users method.
This method can only be used with server-side authentication.
```js label="Node.js"
const response = await serverClient.exportUsers({
user_ids: [userID],
});
const taskID = response.task_id;
```
```python label="Python"
response = client.export_users(user_ids=[user_id])
task_id = response.data.task_id
```
```ruby label="Ruby"
require 'getstream_ruby'
Models = GetStream::Generated::Models
response = client.common.export_users(Models::ExportUsersRequest.new(
user_ids: [user_id]
))
task_id = response.task_id
```
```php label="PHP"
$response = $client->exportUsers(new Models\ExportUsersRequest(
userIds: [$userId],
));
$taskId = $response->getData()->taskID;
```
```go label="Go"
response, err := client.ExportUsers(ctx, &getstream.ExportUsersRequest{
UserIds: []string{userID},
})
taskId := response.Data.TaskID
```
```csharp label="C#"
var exportResponse = await client.ExportUsersAsync(new ExportUsersRequest
{
UserIds = new List { userId },
});
var taskId = exportResponse.Data.TaskID;
```
```java label="Java"
var response = client.exportUsers(ExportUsersRequest.builder()
.userIds(List.of(userId))
.build()).execute().getData();
var taskId = response.getTaskID();
```
The export runs asynchronously and returns a task ID. Poll the task until its status is `completed` to obtain a URL for downloading the exported data in line-separated JSON format. Each user's export contains their profile, messages, reactions, calls, and custom data.
A single request can export up to 25 users with a maximum of 10,000 messages per user. [Contact support](https://getstream.io/contact/support/) to export users with more than 10,000 messages.
### Retrieving the export
You can check the status of an export request using the task ID returned when the task was created. The result of the task contains the URL to the JSON file. Poll the task status endpoint, or use the SDK helper that waits for completion, as described in [Async operations](https://getstream.io/docs/platform/async-operations/).
## The Right to Erasure
The GDPR also grants EU citizens the right to request the deletion of their personal information. Stream offers mechanisms to delete users and their data in accordance with various use cases, ensuring compliance with these regulations.
### Deleting users
```js label="Node.js"
client.deleteUsers({ user_ids: [""] });
//restore
client.restoreUsers({ user_ids: [""] });
```
```python label="Python"
# Delete users
client.delete_users(user_ids=[""])
# Restore users
client.restore_users(user_ids=[""])
```
```ruby label="Ruby"
# Delete users
client.delete_users(
GetStream::Generated::Models::DeleteUsersRequest.new(
user_ids: ['']
)
)
# Restore users
client.restore_users(
GetStream::Generated::Models::RestoreUsersRequest.new(
user_ids: ['']
)
)
```
```php label="PHP"
// Delete users (soft delete by default)
$client->deleteUsers(
new GeneratedModels\DeleteUsersRequest(
userIds: ['']
)
);
// Delete users with options (hard delete)
$client->deleteUsers(
new GeneratedModels\DeleteUsersRequest(
userIds: [''],
user: 'hard',
messages: 'hard',
conversations: 'hard',
newChannelOwnerID: 'new-owner-id'
)
);
// Restore users
$client->restoreUsers(
new GeneratedModels\RestoreUsersRequest(
userIds: ['']
)
);
```
```go label="Go"
// Delete users
deleteRequest := &getstream.DeleteUsersRequest{
UserIds: []string{""},
}
_, err = client.DeleteUsers(context.Background(), deleteRequest)
// Restore users
restoreRequest := &getstream.RestoreUsersRequest{
UserIds: []string{""},
}
_, err = client.RestoreUsers(context.Background(), restoreRequest)
```
```csharp label="C#"
// Delete users
await _client.DeleteUsersAsync(new DeleteUsersRequest
{
UserIds = new List { "" }
});
// Restore users
await _client.RestoreUsersAsync(new RestoreUsersRequest
{
UserIds = new List { "" }
});
```
```java label="Java"
// Delete users
client.deleteUsers(
DeleteUsersRequest.builder()
.userIds(Arrays.asList(""))
.build()
).execute();
// Restore users
client.restoreUsers(
RestoreUsersRequest.builder()
.userIds(Arrays.asList(""))
.build()
).execute();
```
By default users and their data are soft-deleted. The delete users endpoint supports the following parameters to control which data needs to be deleted and how.
| Name | Type | Description | Optional |
| ---------------------- | -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------- |
| `user` | Enum (soft, pruning, hard) | - Soft: marks user as deleted and retains all user data.
- Pruning: marks user as deleted and nullifies user information.
- Hard: deletes user completely - this requires hard option for messages and conversation as well. | Yes |
| `conversations` | Enum (soft, hard) | - Soft: marks all conversation channels as deleted (same effect as Delete Channels with 'hard' option disabled).
- Hard: deletes channel and all its data completely including messages (same effect as Delete Channels with 'hard' option enabled). | Yes |
| `messages` | Enum (soft, pruning, hard) | - Soft: marks all user messages as deleted without removing any related message data.
- Pruning: marks all user messages as deleted, nullifies message information and removes some message data such as reactions and flags.
- Hard: deletes messages completely with all related information. | Yes |
| `new_channel_owner_id` | string | Channels owned by hard-deleted users will be transferred to this userID. If you don't provide a value, the channel owner will have a system generated ID like `delete-user-8219f6578a7395g` | Yes |
| `calls` | Enum (soft, hard) | - Soft: marks calls and related data as deleted.
- Hard: deletes calls and related data completely
Note that this applies only to 1:1 calls, not group calls | Yes |
Deleting users is done asynchronously and can take some time to complete. Monitor the returned task ID the same way as for exports.
After deletion, a user can no longer connect to Stream or be displayed when querying users. For the rest of the user lifecycle (deactivating, reactivating, restoring), see [Users](https://getstream.io/docs/platform/users/).
### Deleting product data
Each product has its own deletion endpoints and semantics for the resources a user leaves behind:
- Chat: [deleting a batch of users](https://getstream.io/chat/docs/node/update-users/#deleting-many-users) and [deleting a batch of channels](https://getstream.io/chat/docs/node/channel-delete/#deleting-many-channels)
- Video: [deleting calls](https://getstream.io/video/docs/api/gdpr/calls/)
- Feeds: [deleting a user's feeds data](https://getstream.io/activity-feeds/docs/node/gdpr/)
## PDPB
The same API endpoints documented here can also be used to comply with India's Personal Data Protection Bill (PDPB) requirements.
---
This page was last updated at 2026-08-07T13:10:43.739Z.
For the most recent version of this documentation, visit [https://getstream.io/docs/platform/gdpr/](https://getstream.io/docs/platform/gdpr/).