Amnesia

A MyBB Native Extension to Support Information Administration. Aims to implement main policies introduced by the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Plugin on Extend MyBB | MyBB Community › Plugin Support

Features

• Consent

  New and present users can be asked to accept a Privacy Policy document with provided date before using the forums.

• Data Portability

  Allows users to export personal data related to their account and content.

• Erasure

  Allows users to request account anonymization or deletion to remove their personal data.

Dependencies

• MyBB >= 1.8.15
• https://github.com/frostschutz/MyBB-PluginLibrary
• PHP >= 7.1

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3rd Party Integration

• Personal Data Fields

  • Register database fields storing personal data in the mybb_users table using the amnesia_personal_account_data_fields hook by appending field names to the array and, if applicable, use the MyBB's datahandler_user_clear_profile hook executed in the UserDataHandler::clear_profile() method that removes redundant information.

  • Register database fields storing personal data in other tables using the amnesia_personal_data_field_definitions and amnesia_personal_data_sensitive_field_definitions hooks by appending field definitions to arrays of standard and sensitive fields, respectively. Sensitive fields hold information that board administrators may wish to retain for security reasons (preventing e.g. logs of malicious activity from being purged).

  $TABLE_NAME => [
      'fields' => [
          $FIELD_NAME => [
              'type' => $FIELD_TYPE,
              'anonymizedValue' => $VALUE_AFTER_ANONYMIZATION,
          ],
          ...
      ],
      'userIdSelector' => $USER_ID_FIELD,
  ],
  ...
  

  The multidimensional arrays with table names as keys (first level) contain a list of personal data fields (fields) with arbitrary type identifiers (type) used to classify values and group unique entries when exporting data. The user ID selector (userIdSelector) indicates a column that will be used to match a user by their ID.

  • Register output formatting for custom field types with the amnesia_format_database_value_for_output hook taking an array with type and value elements a parameter. The overwritten value element will be used in final output for the user. Custom formatting for values stored in the users table can be registered with the amnesia_format_user_account_data_for_output hook accepting an array of user row values that can be overwritten.

• Event Hooks

  The extension introduces new plugin hooks executed with certain actions:

  • amnesia_set_privacy_policy_last_read_for_user
  • amnesia_reload_privacy_policy_date
  • amnesia_create_erasure_request
  • amnesia_cancel_erasure_request
  • amnesia_verify_erasure_request
  • amnesia_complete_erasure_request
  • amnesia_approve_erasure_request
  • amnesia_schedule_erasure_request
  • amnesia_anonymize_user_start
  • amnesia_anonymize_user_end
  • amnesia_create_export_request
  • amnesia_invalidate_export_request
  • amnesia_invalidate_user_export_requests
  • amnesia_verify_export_request
  • amnesia_complete_export_request

Plugin Management Events

• Install:
  • Database structure created/altered
  • Cache entries created
  • Tasks registered
• Uninstall:
  • Database structure & data deleted/restored
  • Settings deleted
  • Cache entries removed
  • Tasks removed
• Activate:
  • Settings populated/updated
  • Templates & stylesheets inserted/altered
• Deactivate:
  • Templates & stylesheets removed/restored

Security Design

User requests for Personal Data Erasure and Export are verified by providing the account password and a verification code (link) sent to the associated email address on success.

The Export mechanism requires the password to be provided first, within the uninterrupted forum usage session, to reduce phishing-related attacks and the verification code to be provided within the same browsing session (using an additional session cookie) to prevent data from being exported by third parties with email and device (with active user session) access alone. Verification attempts for logged-in users without the additional session cookie invalidate the associated request. The data can only be accessed once for every export operation. Subsequent requests invalidate all previous ones for the user. Unverified requests expire after 24 hours.

Logs for completed Erasure and Export operations (not containing personal data) are not being pruned from the database during normal usage.

Development Mode

The plugin can operate in development mode, where plugin templates are being fetched directly from the templates/ directory - set amnesia\DEVELOPMENT_MODE to true in inc/plugins/amnesia.php.