Commerce

8.5.x

Data Protection

Overview

Elastic Path Commerce provides the following additional features for the management of personal data and documentation to maintain compliance with various data protection laws for the collection, storage, and usage of personal data:

  • Managing data policies which can be associated with the data policies defined in the Content Management Systems (CMS).
  • Managing user permission details such as, time of consent for each data policy.
  • Managing user data when the retention period of the data policies are exceeded.
  • Managing deletion of data points.
  • Disabling a specific a data policy or deleting data points for an individual or for all shoppers manually.
  • Providing information about the personal data of the shopper being used by the store and allowing the customer to change the settings.
  • Managing details of the data policies configured in the system and a detailed list of customers and the data policies that are active for a customer.

You can use data policies to maintain compliance with various data protection laws, such as CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) or GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

Data Points

A data point refers to a specific field about a customer that Elastic Path Commerce collects. For example when a customer orders an item, Elastic Path Commerce collects information about the customer such as the name, address, and email address.

Elastic Path Commerce collects customer data from the shopper profile, shopper addresses, submitted orders, or any personal information that is persisted with the cart.

Data point deletion

The system runs a scheduled job to delete data points if either the retention period of the data policy expires or consent is revoked. For more information, see the Data Point Revoked Consents Job and Expired Data Point Values Job documentation. By default, these jobs run daily at 2:00 am and 1:00 am, respectively.

If a data point is used in one or more data policies, data is automatically removed only if the following conditions are met:

  • The customer has not provided consent for the data point in any other data policy
  • The retention period for all data policies using the data point is expired

The store administrator can also manually remove customer field data in Commerce Manager if the customer requests removal of information.

Data Point Properties

  • name

    Type: String

    Specifies the name of the data point.

  • dataLocation

    Type: String

    Specifies the source of the data point.

    For example, customer profile or customer address. By default, all data points are stored in Elastic Path Commerce database. However, for customized Elastic Path Commerce data points, the data points might be stored in a different location, such as LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), File.

  • dataKey

    Type: String

    Provides a reference for the value of a data point in the database. For example, for the email address in customer profile, data location is customer profile and key is email address. For more information, see Elastic Path Commerce data points.

  • descriptionKey

    Type: String

    Specifies a key that a CMS or localized property files uses to describe the data point.

  • removable

    Type: boolean

    Specifies whether a data point needs to be retained for auditing or legal reasons.

  • guid

    Type: String

    Specifies a GUID to use with import or export capabilities

Elastic Path Commerce data points

Elastic Path Commerce provides the following data points:

NameData LocationData Key
Customer Billing AddressCUSTOMER_BILLING_ADDRESSSee ADDRESS Data Keys.
Customer Shipping AddressCUSTOMER_SHIPPING_ADDRESSSee ADDRESS Data Keys.
Customer All AddressesCUSTOMER_ALL_ADDRESSESSee ADDRESS Data Keys.
Order Billing AddressORDER_BILLING_ADDRESSSee ADDRESS Data Keys.
Order IP AddressORDER_IP_ADDRESSORDER_IP_ADDRESS
Order Payment Card Holder NameORDER_PAYMENT_CARD_HOLDER_NAMEORDER_PAYMENT_CARD_HOLDER_NAME
Order Gift CertificateORDER_GIFT_CERTIFICATESee ORDER_GIFT_CERTIFICATE Data Keys.
Cart Gift CertificateCART_GIFT_CERTIFICATESee CART_GIFT_CERTIFICATE Data Keys.
Customer ProfileCUSTOMER_PROFILESee CUSTOMER_PROFILE Data Keys.
Order DataORDER_DATASee ORDER_DATA Data Keys.
Order Payment Gift Certificate Recipient NameORDER_PAYMENT_GIFT_CERTIFICATERECIPIENT_NAME
Order Payment Gift Certificate Sender NameORDER_PAYMENT_GIFT_CERTIFICATESENDER_NAME
Order Payment Gift Certificate Recipient EmailORDER_PAYMENT_GIFT_CERTIFICATERECIPIENT_EMAIL

ADDRESS Data Keys

ADDRESS data keys are defined as follows:

  • FIRST_NAME
  • LAST_NAME
  • FAX_NUMBER
  • STREET_1
  • STREET_2
  • CITY
  • SUB_COUNTRY
  • ZIP_POSTAL_CODE
  • COUNTRY

CUSTOMER_PROFILE Data Keys

The CUSTOMER_PROFILE data keys have the prefix CP_. The keys are defined in the TATTRIBUTE table and set in the TCUSTOMERPROFILEVALUE table.

The following CUSTOMER_PROFILE data keys are defined by default:

  • CP_FIRST_NAME
  • CP_LAST_NAME
  • CP_EMAIL
  • CP_PREF_LOCALE
  • CP_PREF_CURR
  • CP_ANONYMOUS_CUST
  • CP_PHONE
  • CP_FAX
  • CP_COMPANY
  • CP_DOB
  • CP_HTML_EMAIL
  • CP_BE_NOTIFIED
  • CP_BUSINESS_NUMBER
  • CP_TAX_EXEMPTION_ID

Additionally, any custom customer profile attribute added in the Elastic Path Admin Console can be used as a data key.

All data points values can be removed, but removing the following data key values can result in HTTP errors presented to the end user. If you need to remove the following data key values, ensure that any errors are properly handled:

  • CP_FIRST_NAME
  • CP_LAST_NAME
  • CP_EMAIL

CART_GIFT_CERTIFICATE Data Keys

CART_GIFT_CERTIFICATE data keys are found in the TCARTITEMMODIFIER database table, prefixed with KEY_:

  • KEY_RECIPIENT_EMAIL
  • KEY_RECIPIENT_NAME
  • KEY_SENDER_NAME
  • KEY_CODE
  • KEY_SENDER_EMAIL
  • KEY_PRODUCT_TYPE
  • KEY_GUID

ORDER_GIFT_CERTIFICATE Data Keys

ORDER_GIFT_CERTIFICATE data keys are found in the TCARTITEMMODIFIER database table. Any value in this table can be used as a data key.

ORDER_DATA Data Keys

ORDER_DATA is provided as a data location for additional data required by your business that needs to be associated with the order.

To provide a data key value to the ORDER_DATA data location, call the com.elasticpath.domain.order.Order interface’s Order.setFieldValue() method. The values provided to this method are stored in the TORDERDATA table. Any value in the ITEM_KEY column can be used as a data key.

Data Point service methods

The com.elasticpath.service.datapolicy.DataPointService class provides methods to create, update, and read data points.

Reading data point values

The DataPointValueServiceclass provides the DataPointValueService.getValues() method to read one or more data point values, for one or more customers. You can use the values of data points to generate reports and to display data point values of a shopper before deletion.

To get values of data points of a customer, provide a map in the following format: DataPointValueService.getValues(Map<String, ? extends Collection<DataPoint>)

String specifies a customer GUID and a list of data points to read the database values for. This method returns a collection of DataPointValue instances corresponding to data point values.

Map<String, Collection<DataPoint>> customerGuidToDataPoints = new HashMap<>(1);
DataPoint dp = new DataPoint();
dp.setName("A name");
dp.setDataLocation("CUSTOMER_PROFILE");
dp.setDataKey("CP_EMAIL");
List<DataPoint> dataPoints = Collections.singletonList(dp);
customerGuidToDataPoints .put(customerGuid, dataPoints);
List<DataPointValue> dataPointValues = dataPointValueService.getValues(customerGuidToDataPoints);

Deleting data point values

The DataPointValueService class provides the DataPointValueService.removeValues() method to delete one or more data point values. You can provide one or more DataPointValue instances corresponding to the data points that you want to delete. A DataPointValue instance has a unique uidPk value corresponding to the location of the data point value in the database.

When you use the DataPointValueService.removeValues() method to delete data point values, such as cart gift certificates, order data, or customer profile, the system deletes data point values from the database. For example, when you use the DataPointValueService.removeValues() method to delete your street address, the system deletes the street address from the database.

note

For data point values, such as IP addresses, order payment gift certificate, email addresses, the values are set to -.

To remove data point values, run the following method with the collection of data point values that you want to remove:

int numOfRemovedDataPointValues = dataPointValueService.removeValues(dataPointValues);
  • The dataPointValues is the collection of data points that you want to remove
  • The system returns the number of the data point values removed from the system

Data Policies

A data policy is a collection of data points that Elastic Path Commerce stores for a specific customer. You can use data policies to maintain compliance with data protection laws. CMS use data policies to manage consents of customers to use their data. With data policies, customer can change the permission settings for data point values at any time. However, you can also define a data policy with no data points.

A data policy with no data points enables collection of consent for data points that are not in Elastic Path Commerce. For example, a data policy for collecting banking details might be maintained in an external system, but the consent is managed by a data policy in Elastic Path Commerce.

Defining the legal description of the data policy, implementation of the data policy, and presenting the data policies to customers are done by the CMS. Elastic Path Commerce only manages the data points in a data policy, logical implementation of the data policy, and the customer consents. A data policy comprises of the following information:

  • A retention period or criteria to determine how long the data policy is retained
  • The data policy segment associated with the data policy
  • An optional collection of data points

Data Policy Properties

  • policyName

    Type: String

    Specifies the name of the data policy.

  • retentionPeriodInDays

    Type: Integer

    Specifies how long the data policy is retained. You can set this period starting from the last modified date and from created date.

  • retentionType

    Type: RetentionType

    Specifies how the retention period start date is calculated. Retention period can either be calculated from the creation date or from the last updated date. You can also define a custom retention type by extending a new object using the com.elasticpath.domain.datapolicy.RetentionType class.

    For active data policies with the From Last Modified Date retention type, the retention period is calculated from the last modified date. For a disabled data policy with the From Last Modified Date retention type, the retention period is calculated either from the last modified date or the disabled date whichever is the earliest date.

    For example, if disabled date is January 3, 2018 and last modified date is January 8, 2018, the retention period is calculated from January 3, 2018. After the retention period of data policies, data is deleted.

  • segments

    Type: Set

    Specifies the data policy segments for which the data policy is applicable.

  • dataPoints

    Type: List

    Specifies the data points associated with the data policy. This setting is optional.

  • startDate

    Type: Date

    Specifies the start date for the data policy. This date implies that the date policy is enabled for the store from the specified date. The default setting is current date and time.

  • endDate

    Type: Date

    Specifies the date until which the data policy is active. Data collected on the end date of a data policy is still retained for the total retention period specified by the policy. You can change the end date of an active data policy. This setting is optional.

  • state

    Type: DataPolicyState

    Specifies the current state of the data policy. Data policies can have DRAFT, ACTIVE, or DISABLED states. The default state is DRAFT.

  • description

    Type: String

    Provides a description for the data policy to provide additional information, such as the purpose or associated data segments. This setting is optional, and the maximum length of description is 255 characters.

  • referenceKey

    Type: String

    Specifies a key that can be used by a CMS to retrieve the data policy text.

  • activities

    Type: String

    Provides additional information about the purpose for which data is being used.

    For example, if data collected by a data policy is used for personalization of orders, you can specify activities as personalization. You can add more than one activity, to a data policy, separated by a comma. This setting is optional.

  • guid

    Type: String

    Specifies a GUID to use with import or export capability

DataPolicyService Methods

The com.elasticpath.service.datapolicy.DataPolicyService class provides methods to create, update, and read data policies.

DataPolicyService.save()

To add a new data policy:

  1. Add the data points to the data point collection in the DataPolicy object, by running:

    DataPolicy.getDataPoints().add(DataPoint);

  2. Add a new datapolicy object by running:

    DataPolicyService.save(DataPolicy dataPolicy);

DataPolicy.update()

You can update a data policy by updating the datapolicy object using the update method: DataPolicyService.update().

note

You can modify settings for a data policy in the draft state only.

After modifying other properties of the data policy, update the data policy using the DataPolicyService.update() method.

Data Policy Segments

Data policy segments indicate logical segments of customers for which a data policy can be applied. For example, you can create data segments for different geographical locations, as required. Each data policy is associated with the one or more data policy segments.

A data segment can be associated with one or more data policies depending on the data protection laws in that segment. How a data policy functions is configured by the front-end developer in the CMS.

Data policy segments are stored as a Set<String> segments in the DataPolicy object. You can add a new data policy segment by adding a new string to Set<String> segments:

policy.getSegments().add(<NEW_SEGMENT>);

After adding new data policy segment to the collection, update data policy using the dataPolicyService.update() method.

Last updated on 5/10/2024
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