GDPR Field

Hi @born2excite

I hope you’re fine today!

The change was mostly “cosmetic” but I understand why you want that to be “uniform” across all submissions and it’s understandable that you’d rather not loose already “GDPR-confirmed” submissions.

I’ve asked our Forminator developers for advice on how to handle this so please keep an eye on this ticket and I or one of my colleagues will update you here again with more information once we got feedback from our developers on this.

Best regards,
Adam

Hi again @born2excite

I just got some additional information from our Forminator Team and in case like this it seems the simplest way to deal with it would be a small “trick”:

– edit the form in question and set the GDPR field to optional instead of required
– then use additional CSS to hide that field
– and add a regular “consent” field to the form

This way visitors would see and use “consent” field and while GDPR filed would still be there it would be invisible and wouldn’t be required so not checking it wouldn’t block submission (while “consent” field would work as expected).

All the previously submitted GDPRs would then also stay in submissions and newly submitted forms would have GDPR empty but consent granted.

Best regards,
Adam

Hi Adam @wpmudev-support8

I understand the workaround you suggest, thanks for following up my issue. My concern is, since the GDPR field is now depreciated and will not be supported going forward, the GDPR field may eventually cause unexpected form functional issues, conflict or even a security vulnerability.

I can hide the GDPR field with CSS but it is still there in the HTML for hackers to exploit. I guess other people in my situation will want to preserve previously submitted GDPR data and will also implement this workaround, increasing the possibility hackers will notice and exploit.

May I suggest a safer workaround by coding Forminator to offer preserving the GDPR submissions instead of deleting them? So, the previously submitted GDPRs will stay in submissions when deleting the GDPR field. This is a low priority issue so the developers can put this fix on the backburner to address whenever they can. The GDPR field still works so I’m happy to wait.

What do you think, Adam?

Best Regards,
Julian

Hello @born2excite ,

If you duplicate your current form and replace GDPR with the Consent field in the new one, you can replace the old form on the front end and then you will still have submissions from the first version of the form. And a new set of submissions from cloned form.

kind regards,
Kasia

Hi Kasia @wpmudev-support2

When trying to replace GDPR field on the duplicated form as you suggested, I still get the same warning:

• Field can’t be deleted
• Deleting this field {gdprcheckbox-1} will remove its value from the existing submissions

This is obviously a problem all users will experience, not just me. Please consider fixing this problem in the Forminator coding so deleting/replacing the GDPR field does NOT delete its values from the existing submissions.

Thank you,
Julian

Hi @born2excite

When trying to replace GDPR field on the duplicated form as you suggested, I still get the same warning:

Are you trying to remove GDPR field from the old form or from the new one – from the copy that you just made?

If it’s from new one, there’ll be a notification but it can be ignored. A copy of the form is not “connected” to original form (the one it was copied from). To recap, steps should be exactly:

1. create a copy of your form first
2. on that NEW form add consent field and remove GDPR field (you can proceed despite warning)
3. remove the OLD form from the page
4. add NEW form to the page
5. unpublish OLD form

This way

– you’ll have “inactive” (so not visible and “submittable” anymore), kind of “archived” original form with all the submissions, including GDPR; this will only be available for you in site’s back-end

– a new form that will use consent type field, that users will be able submit

– in back-end you’ll have two sets of submissions on “Forminator -> Submissions” page; the first one if you select OLD form will be with GDPR field, there’ll be no new submissions added to it; the second one when you select NEW form using only consent field, only containing new submissions since the form was added.

If you are stil hesitant to do this, take a backup of the site first (so you could restore it if needed) and then give it a go.

Kind regards,
Adam

Hello @born2excite ,

We haven’t heard from you for some time now, so it looks like you don’t have more questions for us.

Feel free to re-open this ticket if needed.

Kind regards
Kasia

Hey Adam @wpmudev-support8

Sorry for the late reply! I was trying to remove GDPR field from the NEW form. Thanks for your explanation, I now understand a form copy is not “connected” to original form and deleting the new form GDPR field will not delete the original form submissions.

I appreciate your detailed explanation, Adam, and your effort to produce clear instructions demonstrates the high quality and value you provide.

Much thanks,
Julian