Erase a person's personal data

POST /people/{personId}/erase

Erase a person's personal data — a channel's customer redaction, and the platform's answer to a right-to-erasure request.

The key that sealed every profile this person ever had is destroyed in the same transaction the fact is written in: the journal keeps its events (replay stays total, every document that named the psn_ id still resolves, every count still adds up) but nothing in them can be read again, and the projection row becomes a tombstone — status: erased, profile: null, tags dropped, marketing unsubscribed — named "Erased person" wherever it appears. The email is released: the same address may register a new person afterwards, who shares nothing with the old one. Appends crm.person-erased. Idempotent by state: the person's own status is the key — a retry, or any erase of a person already erased, is acknowledged and appends nothing. reference (the request being honoured — a ticket number, a minted key) is required and is recorded on the fact, not spent as a single-use token: one DSAR ticket may name several subjects, so the same reference erases each of them. Requires the admin job.

Access

Requires privacy:write.

How scopes come from roles: Scopes and roles. Getting a token: Authentication and app tokens.

Retries

Idempotent by state: the person's own status is the key — a retry, or any erase of a person already erased, is acknowledged and appends nothing.

Why every write carries a key: Idempotency and retries.

Facts appended

crm.person-erased

What a fact is: Facts and the journal.

AI agent tool

Agents call this as crm_erase_person (CRM: Erase person), in the crm toolset. It is marked destructive, so the agent asks before running it.

Connecting an agent: AI agents.

Example

curl

curl -X POST 'https://crm.getmanifold.io/people/psn_01a1588a-0c41-7d2e-9a10-3b5c6d7e8f90/erase' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MANIFOLD_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
  "reference": "DSAR-2026-0187",
  "reason": "Customer asked for their data to be erased"
}'

JavaScript (fetch)

const response = await fetch("https://crm.getmanifold.io/people/psn_01a1588a-0c41-7d2e-9a10-3b5c6d7e8f90/erase", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.MANIFOLD_TOKEN}`, "Content-Type": "application/json" },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "reference": "DSAR-2026-0187",
    "reason": "Customer asked for their data to be erased"
  }),
});
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`${response.status}: ${await response.text()}`);
const answer = await response.json();

Request body · application/json

{
  "reference": "DSAR-2026-0187",
  "reason": "Customer asked for their data to be erased"
}

Response · 200 · application/json

{
  "id": "psn_01a1588a-0c41-7d2e-9a10-3b5c6d7e8f90",
  "emailKey": "593c82fc1f2944d758cdd3ba99d3846467ec3417f394e5f47c7410b939a0a83c",
  "status": "erased",
  "tags": [],
  "roles": [
    "customer"
  ],
  "taxExempt": false,
  "emailMarketing": "unsubscribed",
  "smsMarketing": "unsubscribed",
  "profile": null,
  "createdAt": "2026-10-20T09:00:00.000Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-10-20T11:30:00.000Z",
  "erasedAt": "2026-10-20T11:30:00.000Z"
}

The panel writes this call in other languages. It does not send it: Manifold's APIs do not take calls from a web page on another site, so run the call from your own code or terminal. The whole API as OpenAPI: crm-manager.openapi.json. Base URL https://crm.getmanifold.io.

Errors

Every refusal is a status and a JSON body whose _tag names it. A refused call changes nothing.

`401`

Refusal	What it means	What to do
`Unauthorized` reason	The token is missing, expired or not one Manifold issued.	Get a fresh token and send the call again.
`TokenAlreadyUsed` tokenId	A single-use app token was already spent.	Mint a new token for this call.

`402`

Refusal	What it means	What to do
`SubscriptionRequired` status	The organization's subscription has lapsed, so writes are refused.	An owner settles billing. Reads still work meanwhile.

`403`

Refusal	What it means	What to do
`TenantRequired` userId	The token names no organization.	Choose the organization, then get a new token.
`ScopeRequired` required	The token's roles do not grant the scope this call needs.	Ask an owner or admin for a role that grants it.

`404`

Refusal	What it means	What to do
`PersonNotFound` personId	No such record in this organization.	Check the id in the path or the body.

`409`

Refusal	What it means	What to do
`MirroredFromSource` source	This area is fed by your source system until the organization goes live.	Make the change in the source system, or go live first.

`503`

Refusal	What it means	What to do
`RequestLogUnavailable` tokenId, reason	The service could not record the request, so it did nothing.	Send the same request again shortly.

How refusals work everywhere: Errors.

Used in

A person, a supplier, and a right-to-erasure request, step 11: Honour an erasure request