SoulSync — Account Deactivation, Data Deletion & Privacy Compliance

Last Updated: August 4, 2026

At SoulSync, we believe that data privacy and sovereignty over your personal information are fundamental rights. We provide complete transparency and control over how your data is stored, processed, deactivated, exported, and permanently deleted.

1. Account Deactivation vs. Account Deletion

SoulSync provides two distinct mechanisms for managing your account lifecycle:

A. Account Deactivation (Temporary Pause)

• What it is: A temporary pause on your platform presence.
• What happens: Your profile, avatar, posts, comments, prayer requests, and church group memberships are immediately hidden from public view, search rosters, and member directories.
• Data retention: Your data remains safely encrypted and stored in our database.
• Reactivation: You can reactivate your account at any time simply by signing in again with your email and password. All your content, history, and settings will be restored instantly.

B. Account Deletion (Permanent Erasure with 30-Day Retention Window)

• What it is: A formal, permanent data erasure request governed by global privacy laws (GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, POPIA, Kenya DPA 2019).
• What happens:

1. Immediate Soft-Deletion (Day 0): Your account and all user-contributed data disappear from public view, search results, and church rosters immediately.

2. 30-Day Retention & Reactivation Window (Days 0–30): To prevent accidental loss, fulfill statutory financial audit obligations, and allow legal accountability verification, your data is soft-deleted for 30 calendar days. If you change your mind within 30 days, logging in again automatically cancels the deletion request and restores your active profile.

3. Automated Hard Deletion & Anonymization (After Day 30): Once the 30-day window expires, an automated background engine executes cascading hard deletions across all 50+ database tables, scrubs your record from Supabase Auth, and anonymizes shared community records.

2. How to Request Account Deactivation or Deletion

1. Log into your account on the SoulSync app or web portal.

2. Navigate to Profile Settings from your user menu.

3. Select the Danger Zone tab.

4. Choose your desired action:

- Click Deactivate Account for a temporary pause.

- Click Export My Data Report to download a machine-readable JSON archive of your data.

- Click Initiate Account Deletion for permanent erasure.

5. In the deletion modal, you may leave optional feedback on why you are leaving, and type DELETE to confirm your request.

3. Data Portability & User Data Export (GDPR Art. 15 & 20)

Before initiating account deletion, you have the right to obtain a complete copy of all personal data held by SoulSync.

By clicking Export My Data Report in the Danger Zone settings, SoulSync instantly generates a downloadable, structured JSON file (soulsync_user_data_report.json) containing:

• Account details & Christian Covenant timestamps.
• Profile information, bio, location, education, and career history.
• Church memberships and leadership designations.
• Posts, comments, and prayer requests created by you.
• Friendship graph connections and social group memberships.
• Points, merchandise redemptions, and referral history.
• Communication channel opt-in/opt-out preferences.

4. Multi-Jurisdictional Privacy Compliance Write-Up

SoulSync operates in strict alignment with international data protection frameworks:

1. European Union & United Kingdom (GDPR / UK-GDPR)

• Right to Erasure (Art. 17): SoulSync honors the "Right to be Forgotten." Soft-deletion takes effect instantly, and hard deletion is finalized within 30 calendar days—well within GDPR's 30-day statutory response limit (Art. 12(3)).
• Right of Access & Portability (Art. 15 & 20): Our automated export tool provides JSON data packages containing all user-generated records.
• Lawful Processing (Art. 6): Soft-deletion during the 30-day window balances consumer rights with legitimate compliance interests (financial auditing, preventing fraudulent re-registration).

2. California, USA (CCPA / CPRA)

• Right to Delete (§ 1798.105): Consumers have the right to request deletion of personal information collected by SoulSync.
• Response Timeline: Requests are acknowledged instantly and completed within 30 days (surpassing California's 45-day requirement).
• Non-Discrimination (§ 1798.125): Exercising deletion rights does not affect access to remaining free features should you create a new account in the future.

3. Brazil (LGPD — Law No. 13.709/2018)

• Data Subject Rights (Art. 18 IX): Data subjects may request deletion of personal data processed with consent. SoulSync completes deletion within 30 days, exceeding LGPD's 15-day administrative standard for preliminary processing acknowledgment.

4. Canada (PIPEDA)

• Principle 4.9 (Access) & Principle 4.5 (Retention Limits): Personal data is retained only as long as necessary to fulfill the operational and legal purposes for which it was collected.

5. South Africa (POPIA — Act 4 of 2013)

• Section 24 (Correction or Deletion of Personal Information): SoulSync enables data subjects to request deletion of personal information stored on our platforms.

6. Kenya & East Africa (Data Protection Act, 2019)

• Section 40 (Right to Erasure): Data subjects have the right to require a data controller or processor to erase false, misleading, or unwanted personal data without undue delay.

5. Non-PII Cryptographic Audit Logging

When an account is hard-deleted after 30 days, privacy laws mandate that platforms maintain proof of compliance without retaining raw personal identifiable information (PII).

SoulSync maintains an immutable record in our data_deletion_audit_logs database table containing:

• Salted SHA-256 Email Hash: A cryptographic, privacy-preserving hash of your email address (allowing regulatory verification that a deletion occurred without storing your raw email).
• Request & Completion Timestamps: Exact dates when deletion was requested, scheduled, and completed.
• Execution Manifest: A table-by-table record of purged row counts.
• Regulatory Jurisdiction Code: Applicable legal framework under which deletion was processed.

6. Contacting the Data Protection Officer (DPO)

If you have questions about our data deletion process or require assistance exercising your legal privacy rights, contact our Data Protection Officer:

• Email: legal@soulsync.faith