Privacy and Reference
Data Privacy, Anonymisation and Log Retention in Logify
What is it?
Logify stores its activity log in your own database — nothing is sent anywhere unless you switch on an optional feature. This page covers the controls you have over what gets recorded, what is shown, and how to keep the log from growing without limit.
There are three controls worth knowing:
- Data Anonymization — hides IP addresses in the Activity Logs screen.
- Exclusion Rules — stop activity being recorded at all.
- Cleanup on Uninstall — remove every trace of the plugin when you delete it.
Why is it helpful?
An activity log is personal data. It records who did what, from which IP address, using which browser. If you operate under GDPR or a similar regime, you need to be able to say what you collect, show it when asked, and delete it when required.
These controls let you:
- Collect less in the first place. The cleanest way to satisfy a privacy requirement is not to record the data at all.
- Keep IP addresses off screen for staff who review logs but have no business seeing them.
- Remove a person's history on request, from the admin screen or the command line.
- Leave nothing behind when the plugin is removed.
How to use it
Step 1: Choose your anonymisation level
Go to Logify > Settings > General. The Data Anonymization option offers three choices:
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| Do Not Anonymise (default) | IP addresses and countries are shown in full. |
| Anonymise Only IP | IP addresses are masked — 192.168.1.42 becomes 192.168.1.xxx. IPv6 addresses lose their last four groups. The country is still shown. |
| Anonymise All Data | IP addresses are masked and the country is hidden as well. |
Masking applies everywhere the value is surfaced: the Activity Logs list, the details panel of an individual entry, the User Sessions screen, and every export format.
Important: this controls what is displayed and exported. The full IP is still stored in the database, so anonymisation is a disclosure control rather than a collection control. If you must not hold IP addresses at all, use Exclusion Rules to avoid recording the activity in the first place, or delete the entries afterwards.
Step 2: Stop recording what you do not need
Logify > Settings > Exclusions drops activity before it is ever written to the database. You can exclude by:
- user
- role
- IP address
- post type
- post status
- whole event categories
This is the strongest privacy control in the plugin, because excluded activity never becomes a record in the first place. See How Can I Stop Certain Activities From Being Recorded?
Step 3: Set how long entries are kept
Logify > Settings > General > Log Retention Period controls how long an entry stays in the database:
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| 7 Days | Entries older than 7 days are removed automatically. |
| 30 Days (default) | Entries older than 30 days are removed automatically. |
| Keep Indefinitely | Nothing is ever removed automatically. |
A daily task does the clearing, working in batches so a large backlog does not tie up the database in one go. Developers can override the period with the kc_lf_log_retention_days filter — returning 0 keeps everything.
Before you lower this on an established site, export first. Purged entries cannot be recovered.
You can also clear entries yourself at any time:
- Bulk delete — select rows on the Activity Logs screen and delete them. See How Can I Delete Multiple Activity Logs At Once?
- Single delete — the Delete row action on an individual entry.
- WP-CLI — clear by user or event type from the command line. See How Can I Manage Logify From Command Line?
Exporting before you delete gives you an archive to keep outside the database. See How Can I Download My Website Activity Report?
Step 4: Decide what happens when the plugin is removed
Logify > Settings > General > Cleanup on Uninstall controls whether deleting the plugin also deletes its data. Turn it on and removing Logify drops the activity log table, its settings, scheduled tasks, and related metadata, leaving the database as it was before installation.
Leave it off if you plan to reinstall later and want your history preserved.
Answering a data request
If someone asks what you hold about them, or asks you to delete it:
- Open Logify > Activity Logs and filter by that User.
- Export the filtered view if you need to provide a copy — CSV or JSON are the easiest to hand over.
- Delete their entries with the bulk action, or from the command line:
wp logify clear --user-id=123
What leaves your site
Everything Logify records is stored in your own database. The one optional exception is country lookup: when Logify cannot determine a country locally, it can ask an external service. That behaviour, and how to avoid it entirely, is covered in How Logify Determines IP Address and Country.
Frequently asked questions
Does Logify record passwords? No. Password changes are recorded as an event, but never the password itself.
Does anonymisation apply retroactively? The setting affects what the Activity Logs screen displays, so it applies to existing rows immediately. It does not alter what is stored.
Who can see the activity log? Log screens are restricted to administrators.