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Data subject request procedure

Use this skill when a company needs a working process for privacy requests, or just received one and has none, and asks "DSAR procedure", "how do we handle a subject access request", "someone asked us to delete their data", "right to erasure process", "data subject rights workflow", "GDPR request handling" or "we missed the one-month deadline". Designs intake from any channel, a proportionate identity check, the system search map, review and redaction, response templates per right, deadline tracking and a request log, written as a procedure the support and privacy teams can run.

PrivacyGDPRISO 27701

Use this to build the procedure once and to rehearse it before a real request arrives. You get four files in a new folder, ./data-subject-request-procedure/: the written procedure staff follow when someone asks for their data (procedure.md); a table of every system holding personal data, with how to search, export and delete in each (system-search-map.md); plain-language reply letters, one per type of request (response-templates.md); and an empty spreadsheet you can open in Excel to log each request and its deadline (request-log-template.csv). This skill drafts for a human to review and sign; this skill never marks a control effective. The privacy lead approves the procedure and every response before it is sent.

Inputs to gather

Read the record of processing activities, system and vendor lists, data processing agreements, the privacy notice, support tooling and past requests. Ask the reader, in one message: who is the privacy contact or data protection officer, which channels customers and staff use to reach the company, whether the company also processes data for customers (then requests about that data belong to the customer), and which countries' supervisory authorities matter.

Step 1: design intake

A request is valid whatever the channel or wording: an email to any employee, a support ticket, a chat message, a letter. The procedure says:

  • Every front-line role forwards anything that looks like a privacy request to one queue within one business day, with the original message and the date it arrived. The deadline runs from receipt by the company, not from arrival in the queue.
  • A web form may be offered, never required.
  • If the company is the processor for the data concerned, it forwards the request to the customer as the data processing agreement sets out (the assistance term in Article 28(3)(e)) and does not answer it.

Step 2: verify identity proportionately

Use what the company already trusts: a request from the account's email address or the logged-in product is usually enough. Ask for more only where there are reasonable doubts (Article 12(6) of the GDPR) and ask for the least that resolves them. Do not demand a copy of an identity document by default; it collects more data than the request needs. Requests made through an agent or lawyer need evidence of their authority. Record what was checked and the dates: ask promptly, never use verification to buy time, and follow the supervisory authority's guidance on how the clock runs while you wait.

Step 3: track the deadline

Article 12(3) sets the response time: without undue delay and within one month of receipt, extendable by two further months for complex or numerous requests, provided the person is told of the extension and the reasons within the first month. Set an internal target of about 20 calendar days so reviews and extensions fit. Requests are free; for manifestly unfounded or excessive requests a reasonable fee or a refusal is possible under Article 12(5), with reasons recorded, and the privacy lead decides.

Step 4: build the system search map

In the search table (system-search-map.md), one row per system holding personal data, taken from the processing record: data held, search key (email, customer id, phone), owner role, how to export, how to delete or restrict, what happens in backups (data put beyond use and removed as backups rotate), and processors to ask. Include unstructured places: shared mailboxes, chat, documents and the support tool. A search map written before the first request is what makes the deadline achievable.

Step 5: review, redact and respond per right

  • Access (Article 15): a copy of the data plus the information that article lists (purposes, categories, recipients, retention, source, rights, automated decisions, transfer safeguards). Remove other people's data and confidential business information (the copy must not adversely affect others, Article 15(4)); the privacy lead checks any exemption with counsel.
  • Rectification and erasure (Articles 16 and 17): confirm what changed or was deleted, and what is kept and why, naming the Article 17(3) ground relied on (a legal retention duty, a legal claim). Tell recipients where Article 19 applies.
  • Restriction, portability, objection and automated decisions (Articles 18, 20, 21 and 22): an objection to direct marketing is always honoured; other objections need a documented assessment.

Any refusal, full or partial, goes out within one month with the reasons and the right to complain to a supervisory authority and to seek a judicial remedy (Article 12(4)). Write one reply letter per right in plain language in response-templates.md, and deliver data through a secure channel, never as an open attachment to an unverified address.

Step 6: log and learn

The request log spreadsheet (request-log-template.csv) holds request id, received date, type, verification method, extension, systems searched, outcome and closed date, and no copy of the data released. The log is itself personal data: restrict it to the privacy team and give it a retention period. Review it every quarter: requests answered on time, by type, and the systems that slowed the search.

What good looks like

  • The best practitioner checks first whether front-line staff recognise a request that does not use legal words ("what do you have on me?", "close my account and forget me"). Missed recognition is the most common cause of a missed deadline.
  • The common mistake is a procedure that starts at form submission, asks everyone for a passport scan and searches only the main database. The tell: no search map, no unstructured sources, receipt dates taken from the queue.
  • Good output lets a support agent who has never seen a request route it correctly on day one, and lets the privacy lead prove from the log that each request was answered within its deadline.

Framework lookups

If ISMS Copilot is connected to your agent (MCP server https://account.ismscopilot.com/v1/account/mcp), ask it the framework question with create_conversation (mode think, answer_format: decision) and keep one conversation for this task. Send only a short question in your own words, show it to the user first, and never include file contents, secrets, personal data or evidence. If it is not connected, check the official text of the framework yourself; this skill does not restate it. Set it up: https://www.ismscopilot.com/mcp?ref=grcskills-data-subject-request-procedure

Rules

  • MUST start every deadline from the date the company first received the request.
  • MUST route every response through the privacy lead's review before it is sent.
  • MUST write outputs only inside ./data-subject-request-procedure/ and ask before overwriting.
  • NEVER send a response, delete data or change a system as part of this skill; the procedure tells humans how.
  • NEVER put a requester's personal data or released data in the log or the templates.
  • NEVER require an identity document by default.