After all organizations were required to be compliant in 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) changed the way businesses handle personal data. This ordinance governs how organizations within and outside the EU handle the personal data of EU residents. And if you’re using Salesforce, this is particularly essential, as compliance depends on more than just storing information securely.
You need to give individuals control over their data, respond to access and deletion requests, manage consent preferences, and maintain clear audit trails. Salesforce GDPR features help you achieve this.
The platform offers a set of tools designed to support compliance, but they don’t work automatically. You’ll need to configure them carefully, align them with your internal processes, and fill in any gaps with custom development or third-party solutions.
In this guide, we’ll break down the five core data rights under GDPR and show how Salesforce helps you uphold them, while pointing out the limitations you’ll want to plan around.
What Does GDPR Require? 5 Core Data Rights to Understand
GDPR establishes fundamental rights for individuals regarding their personal data. Before exploring Salesforce's features, let's look at five core data rights your implementation must support:
Right to Access
Individuals can ask if you're processing their data and are entitled to receive copies of that information. Your Salesforce org must be able to find all personal data connected to specific individuals, show how that data is being used, and create comprehensive data reports when requested.
Right to Rectification
Individuals have the right to request corrections if their personal data is inaccurate or incomplete. Your Salesforce setup should enable secure self-service updates where feasible, incorporate robust verification steps for any requested changes, and maintain detailed audit trails of all modifications, ensuring every update is transparent and fully accountable.
Right to Erasure (Right to Be Forgotten)
With the right to erasure (sometimes called the “right to be forgotten”), individuals can ask you to delete their personal data in certain scenarios. Your Salesforce environment should make it easy to find and remove specific personal information, and ensure that deletion happens everywhere (including backups).
Right to Restrict or Object to Processing
Individuals also have the right to limit how their data is used or to object to particular types of processing. To support this in Salesforce, you’ll need to manage consent carefully, flag records to block certain processing activities, and always respect each person’s stated communication preferences.
Right to Data Portability
This provision gives individuals the right to receive their data in a structured, easy-to-use format. Your organization should be ready to export personal data in common file types like CSV or JSON, transfer that information to other data controllers when it's technically possible, and make sure the exports include complete, detailed records.
Salesforce GDPR Features: How the Platform Helps You Comply
Salesforce includes several built-in features supporting GDPR compliance. Here's how these tools address core requirements:
The Individual Object
The Individual object is your go-to tool for bringing together personal data scattered across Salesforce. It lets you connect different records from multiple objects to one person, making it much easier to maintain a complete profile. This centralization also streamlines how you track consent and manage communication preferences.
Plus, with everything linked to the right individual, handling data subject rights requests (such as access or erasure) becomes much more straightforward.
To implement it:
- Enable the object in Setup
- Create fields for your specific consent categories
- Build automation to link records automatically
Consent Management Tools
When it comes to GDPR compliance, capturing and tracking consent is non-negotiable. Salesforce consent management typically involves creating custom fields on the Individual object to keep tabs on specific types of consent. Many organizations also set up web forms to collect consent right at the point where data enters your system, making it easy for users to understand and agree to your policies upfront.
To tie everything together, automation tools can help you apply and enforce the rules for how and when data can be processed based on each person’s choices. Together, this approach helps you build a clear, auditable record of consent across your Salesforce environment.
For proper setup:
- Define consent categories based on processing activities
- Create corresponding tracking fields
- Implement automated preference updates
One limitation is that you'll need to build custom consent forms, as Salesforce doesn't provide ready-made solutions.
Data Export and Portability
When it comes to fulfilling data portability requirements, Salesforce gives you several straightforward options.
You can use their weekly data export services to pull large sets of data on a regular schedule, run targeted report exports to gather specific information as needed, or take advantage of API access for programmatic data retrieval if you need more flexibility or automation. These options make it practical to gather and share personal data in the structured formats GDPR expects.
For implementation:
- Schedule regular data exports
- Create comprehensive user data reports
- Develop API solutions for on-demand data access
Data Deletion and Anonymization
When it comes to supporting the right to erasure, Salesforce gives you a few practical options. You can delete individual records using the platform’s standard tools, remove large volumes of data at once through Data Loader, or anonymize sensitive fields by updating their values as needed.
These methods let you address erasure requests in a way that fits your workflow and compliance needs.
To build a compliant erasure process:
- Document your deletion procedure
- Implement anonymization for sensitive fields
- Create triggers for cascading deletions across related objects
The platform lacks automated, selective data erasure capabilities. Flosum's automated backup solution offers more granular control over data retention and deletion, addressing this gap.
Field-Level and Role-Based Security
Salesforce’s security model is designed to help you keep personal data safe and accessible only to the right people.
Field-level security lets you control exactly who can see sensitive details, while role hierarchies and sharing rules determine which records different users can access. On top of that, creating permission sets gives you the flexibility to fine-tune access for specific team members, ensuring everyone only sees what they need for their job.
For implementation:
- Audit and update field-level security
- Align role hierarchies with your organizational structure
- Apply minimum necessary access principles via permission sets
Encryption and Audit Logs
Salesforce Shield improves your security by offering two major features: Platform Encryption to keep your data protected while it’s stored in Salesforce, and Event Monitoring to give you a clear window into who’s accessing what and when.
Together, these tools ensure your sensitive information stays secure and you have the visibility needed to monitor access across your environment.
To deploy these features:
- Add Salesforce Shield (requires additional licensing)
- Configure encryption for sensitive fields
- Set up monitoring for user activities
While these native tools function well, Flosum provides enhanced encryption and audit capabilities, particularly for tracking changes across sandbox environments and maintaining complete audit trails throughout your Salesforce ecosystem.
What Salesforce Doesn't Do
Despite its feature set, Salesforce isn't "GDPR-compliant" out of the box. Here are the limitations:
- Automated data retention: Salesforce doesn't automatically enforce retention schedules. To meet GDPR compliance requirements, you must set up and manage these policies manually or through custom development.
- Comprehensive data discovery: Finding every instance of personal data in Salesforce requires additional tools or custom solutions beyond what's natively available.
- Universal consent tracking: While Salesforce tracks consent within its ecosystem, it doesn't automatically capture consent across all external touchpoints without integration work.
- One-click data erasure: There's no simple solution for completely erasing an individual's data across all objects and related records.
- Cross-cloud management: Managing GDPR compliance across multiple Salesforce clouds requires additional coordination not provided by native tools.
- Complete audit coverage: Standard field history tracking doesn't provide exhaustive logs for all data-related activities by default.
- Enterprise-grade backup solutions: Salesforce's native backup capabilities fall short for complex data environments requiring granular restoration.
Flosum addresses several of these gaps with enhanced backup automation, archiving capabilities, and secure restoration processes. It significantly improves your ability to manage data and "right to be forgotten" requests.
How to Implement GDPR Compliance with Salesforce GDPR Features
Creating a GDPR-compliant Salesforce environment requires these practical steps:
- Conduct a data audit: Use Schema Builder and Field Trip to map where personal data lives in your org. GDPR Article 30 requires maintaining records of processing activities.
- Configure the individual object: Set up this object with custom fields for your specific consent types. Link it to related records for a unified view of each person's data.
- Implement consent management: Create clear, documented consent processes. Ensure each processing activity has corresponding consent tracking and that preferences update in real-time across systems.
- Set up data subject request processes: Build custom processes or adapt Salesforce case management to handle access, rectification, and erasure requests.
- Configure field-level security: Restrict sensitive data access using profiles and permission sets. Review these settings quarterly as roles and data usage evolve.
- Enable encryption: Use Salesforce Shield Platform Encryption for sensitive data. Flosum provides additional encryption features to improve protection across environments.
- Implement data retention policies: Configure automated retention rules where possible.
- Set up audit trails: Enable Field History Tracking and Setup Audit Trail.
- Train your team: Run regular training on GDPR principles and your specific implementation. Focus on data minimization and purpose limitation concepts.
- Schedule compliance reviews: Perform quarterly assessments of your GDPR measures. Update configurations as regulations and business needs change.
GDPR Compliance is a Process
Salesforce provides tools to support GDPR compliance, but these features represent only part of the equation. Real compliance requires your active involvement in developing comprehensive data strategies tailored to your business context.
Organizations must expect compliance challenges and prepare for them. Businesses are built on data, which makes the threat of data loss a major concern. Many business and IT leaders don't realize that managing GDPR compliance requires ongoing attention, like tending a garden rather than installing a security system.
As regulations evolve and your business grows, your data protection approaches must adapt too. Salesforce provides the tools, but their effectiveness depends on the strategies you build around them. Regular reviews of your data practices and team training ensure your Salesforce instance stays compliant and customer-centric.
