Skip to content
Notory Notory Support

How do I deactivate or delete a user?

Requires Basic

Short answer

Section titled “Short answer”

Notory has no hard “delete” for users. The standard action is deactivation (the Active toggle switched off): the account is preserved but can no longer sign in — and can be reactivated at any time. For the permanent removal of personal data, there’s GDPR erasure (pseudonymization, Art. 17). The recycle bin is a different thing: it applies to assets, not to user accounts.

Requirements

Section titled “Requirements”

Three approaches at a glance

Section titled “Three approaches at a glance”
ActionWhat happensReversible?
DeactivateActive is switched “off”; sign-in is blocked immediately, data is keptYes — reactivate the account
GDPR erasure (Art. 17)Account is pseudonymized, sign-in data/2FA/tokens are removedNo — permanent
Recycle binApplies to assets (deleted objects, restoration), not users—

Instructions

Section titled “Instructions”

  1. Deactivate a user. Go to Administration → User Management → open a user. In the Account section, choose “Deactivate User”. The entry stays in the list but is marked inactive. To reactivate, switch Active back “on”.

    Deactivating blocks sign-in without removing data — reversible at any time.

  2. GDPR erasure (only when necessary). If a data subject must actually be erased, use the privacy features Data export (Art. 15) or Delete / Pseudonymize (Art. 17). This action is permanent.

What happens behind the scenes?

Section titled “What happens behind the scenes?”
  • Deactivation = soft delete. The account is simply set to is_active = false. Every sign-in attempt afterwards fails with “Account is deactivated”; active sessions lose access on their next request. All associations (history, “created by” notes) stay intact — that’s why deactivation is the right choice for employees who have left.
  • No hard delete via user management. There’s deliberately no endpoint that irreversibly removes a user account along with its history — that would destroy audit trails and references.
  • GDPR erasure pseudonymizes. The Art. 17 action removes sign-in data, 2FA devices, and API tokens, and anonymizes the personal-data fields. References (e.g. “who created this asset”) are kept as a pseudonymous reference, so data integrity and the tamper-evident audit log remain intact.
  • The recycle bin is not for users. The recycle bin (restore / delete permanently, with a retention period) is a feature of asset management. It applies to deleted objects like assets — never to user accounts.
  • Audit log. Deactivation and erasure are recorded in the audit log (erasure as an export / privacy action), along with the triggering administrator.
Section titled “Related topics”