Deleting accounts without consequences?

[Technologiczny Informator]

Hi,

I have a question about deleting accounts from DSpace, because nowhere is definitely written about it.
In previous versions, in the documentation entitled "Managing User Accounts" is the information:

"When a user registers an account for the purpose of subscribing to change notices, submitting content, or the like, DSpace creates an EPerson record in the database.  Administrators can manipulate these records in several ways.

Please note that when a user has submitted content, his EPerson record cannot be deleted because there are references to it from the submitted item(s).  If it is necessary to prevent further use of such an account, it can be marked "cannot log in"."

In the documentation for DSpace 7, the second paragraph of this information has been completely removed. Does this mean that deleting an account does not also delete the items associated with it (deposited by that account)? So we can delete accounts without consequences?

Regards,
Mariusz

[DSpace Technical Support]

Hi Mariusz,

Correct, in DSpace 7 it is possible to delete user accounts (EPerson objects) without having to delete all their past submissions, etc.  This was added to better support GDPR guidelines (right to be forgotten).  When the user account is deleted, their past submissions remain, but all revert to having a "null" submitter.   For more details see the PR which made this change at  https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/2229

Tim