How can I delete all of my PII user data?

Recently, I downloaded my data archive and found that the auth_token_logs.csv file contains all my IP addresses from the past three years. Unfortunately, my real IP address was exposed a couple of times, which could indirectly reveal my physical location. I have a few questions about this:

  1. Visibility of IP Addresses: Are these IP addresses accessible to admins and moderators through their dashboard? Can they view them outside the database?

  2. Data Removal: Is there a way to permanently delete all such data? Can this be done via the API? If I delete my account and recreate it, will this remove the IP logs as well?

Reaching out to admins or moderators isn’t an option, as they are the ones I want to avoid sharing my data with.

I believe the forum is hosted on Discourse’s managed hosting, as all images are served from discourse-cdn links. Does this mean the database is fully controlled by Discourse, and the forum admins have no access to it? Is this a safe assumption?

Hi there, you may want to take a quick read of How to delete all IP addresses? to see where IP addresses are (and could be) stored.

No, that is not a safe assumption. The forum admins could:

  • use the data explorer plugin to query the database
  • create and download a backup and extract it somewhere else
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@NateDhaliwal

The forum in question is hosted by discourse. From what I have gathered:

  • Admins and mods can directly see initial signup I.P and last I.P on the dashboard.
  • User data can be downloaded by any admin or mod on the dashboard, which exposes the entire I.P history for any user.