★ Enterprise Edition — not included in the Community Edition. Compare editions

Compliance¶

If you handle email for European users, GDPR applies. Even if it doesn't, these practices are good hygiene. Mailyte ships a real compliance API (/api/v1/compliance/*, platform scope) backed by dedicated tables — use it rather than raw SQL.

GDPR Considerations¶

Email contains personal data by definition — names, addresses, message content. Under GDPR:

• You need a lawful basis for processing email (usually legitimate interest or contract)
• Users have the right to access their data
• Users have the right to erasure (right to be forgotten)
• You must report data breaches within 72 hours
• Data should be minimized — don't keep what you don't need

The Compliance API¶

Erasure requires the platform owner role; most other routes require admin or lower — the route decorators are authoritative.

Legal holds block erasure — enforced¶

POST /data-erasure/{email} checks legal_holds before touching any data and refuses with 409 legal_hold_active if the address is under an active hold. Release the hold (or refuse the erasure request citing it) first. The archiver's retention expiry honours holds as well.

Right to Erasure¶

The erasure flow:

1. Legal-hold check — mandatory, first
2. Soft delete — user data is immediately soft-deleted and the request recorded (data_erasure_requests, status soft_deleted)
3. Hard delete — scheduled 30 days later, allowing review
4. Audit — the request and its progress land in audit_logs

curl -X POST "https://<api-host>/api/v1/compliance/data-erasure/user@example.com" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $OWNER_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"reason": "user request", "requested_by": "support-ticket-1234"}'

Things the API-driven flow covers that ad-hoc SQL forgets: tracking events, suppression entries, sessions, and the audit record of the erasure itself. Mailbox content removal (the Maildir) still requires deleting the mailbox through the mailbox API.

Right to Access (Data Export)¶

# Kick off an export
curl -X POST "https://<api-host>/api/v1/compliance/data-export/user@example.com" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $PLATFORM_KEY"

# Poll for completion
curl -s "https://<api-host>/api/v1/compliance/data-export/user@example.com/status" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $PLATFORM_KEY"

Data Retention Policies¶

Per-organization policies¶

Retention policies are stored per organization (retention_policies) and settable via the compliance API. The archiver service applies retention to archived mail (worker/archiver — retention-policy endpoints plus expiry that honours legal holds).

Operational-table retention¶

Rows in the operational tables below accumulate independently of the archive; prune them on a schedule that matches your policy:

#!/bin/bash
# cleanup_retention.sh — run daily via cron
DB_CMD="docker compose exec -T mysql mysql -u root -p${DB_ROOT_PASSWORD} mailserver -N -e"

for table_config in \
  "email_tracking:created_at:90" \
  "mail_logs:created_at:90" \
  "webhook_delivery_logs:created_at:30" \
  "health_checks:timestamp:7" \
  "service_metrics:timestamp:30"; do

  table=${table_config%%:*}; rest=${table_config#*:}
  column=${rest%%:*}; days=${rest##*:}

  while :; do
    deleted=$($DB_CMD "DELETE FROM $table WHERE $column < NOW() - INTERVAL $days DAY LIMIT 10000; SELECT ROW_COUNT();" | tail -1)
    echo "$table: deleted $deleted rows"
    [ "${deleted:-0}" -eq 0 ] && break
    sleep 1
  done
done

Audit Logging¶

The audit_logs table (created in the baseline schema; a legacy audit_log view maps onto it) records:

Query it via GET /api/v1/compliance/audit-log with filters for event type, actor, and time range.

Data Processing Agreement¶

If you're running Mailyte as a service for others, you need a DPA (Data Processing Agreement) with your customers. It should cover:

• What data you process and why
• How long you keep it (align with your retention_policies)
• Security measures in place (reference the security section)
• Sub-processors — including your S3 provider, since encrypted backups and the mail archive live there
• Breach notification procedures

Checklist¶

• Erasure endpoint with legal-hold enforcement (live)
• Data export endpoint (live)
• Consent recording (live)
• Audit logging (live)
• Legal holds (live)
• Per-org retention policies for archived mail (live, archiver-enforced)
• Automated cleanup of operational tables — you must schedule this yourself
• DPA prepared for customers — organizational, not technical
• Breach notification process documented — organizational
• Privacy policy updated — organizational