Privacy and GDPR
Because comments live in your own database rather than a third-party service, you are in control of your readers' data, and you are also responsible for it. QuillThreads gives you the tools to handle that properly. Privacy options are on Settings → Privacy, and the privacy plugin covers Joomla's data-request flow.
Consent
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Require privacy consent | On | Shows a consent checkbox on the comment form. |
| Privacy policy URL | (empty) | The page the consent prompt links to. |
When consent is required, a reader ticks a box (linked to your policy) before they can post. Set your Privacy policy URL so that link goes somewhere real.
IP addresses
You decide whether commenter IP addresses are kept at all, and for how long:
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Store commenter IP address | Store hashed | Do not store, store hashed, or store in plain text. |
| IP retention (days) | 60 | After this many days, IP data is anonymised. 0 keeps it indefinitely. |
Store hashed is the right default for most sites: it keeps enough to spot and ban abuse without holding a readable address. Choose Do not store if you would rather not keep IPs at all, or plain only if you have a clear reason and say so in your policy.
The retention setting means IPs do not linger forever. The scheduled Maintenance task anonymises hashes older than your retention window automatically. See Scheduled tasks.
Commenter emails
Guest commenters give an email so they can be notified and recognised. QuillThreads stores that email encrypted, never in plain text, and only ever displays a commenter's name publicly, never their address.
Data export and removal
The bundled privacy plugin (plg_privacy_quillthreads) plugs into Joomla's own privacy tools, so subject-access and erasure requests are handled the standard Joomla way:
- A request comes in through Users → Privacy (Joomla's information-request and removal-request system).
- When you process an export request, QuillThreads adds the person's comments and related data to the export.
- When you process a removal request, QuillThreads removes or anonymises their comments.
Make sure the privacy plugin is enabled (System → Manage → Plugins, search quillthreads) so these requests include comment data.
The anonymised name
When a commenter is removed, their comments are not necessarily deleted (that would tear holes in threads). Instead the author is anonymised. The Anonymised display name setting controls what shows in their place, "Deleted user" by default.
A quick privacy checklist
- Set your Privacy policy URL.
- Decide your IP storage and retention and note it in your policy.
- Enable the privacy plugin so data requests cover comments.
- If you use AI moderation, mention that comment text is sent to the AI service for scoring.
- Schedule the Maintenance task so retention is actually enforced. See Scheduled tasks.