Members Opt-Out List - How It Works

Introduction 

This article explains what happens when a member chooses to deactivate their account. The article offers information from a member's perspective and how it is completed in the system itself. The article also gives advice on the possible options to re-register a member account. Account deactivation options can be accessed via My Account. This article is designed for clients and members. 

Deactivate Account 

If a member decides for any reason that they wish to delete/deactivate their accounts, they have the option to do so independently via their account settings page: 

Home > My account > Security Centre: Managing your Data 

From here, members have the option to submit an account deactivation request. After the request is approved by a Data Protection administrator, the member registration identifier (e.g., payroll number, license key depending on their program registration criteria) is added to an opt-out list which means that the member will no longer have access to the portal. 

It may take up to 30 days for the deletion request to be approved. During the approval process, the account remains active, and the user is to be able to login successfully to use any unused balance, vouchers, or cards. 

Once the request is approved, the account is immediately revoked (the user loses access to it and any unused balance, vouchers, or cards will be lost). All data associated with the account will be permanently deleted. 

Members Opt-out List

Opt-out lists are designed to permanently block member’s identifier from being used again in the system. Once opted out, that specific identifier (e.g. payroll number/license key – depending on their program registration criteria) cannot be used to create a new account on that program again. Which means that even if a program administrator tries to add the member again manually, an error will occur, and the user won’t be added. 

Membership List Upload

The same will happen if a manual or automated Membership List refresh is triggered via the Membership List Upload tool. Even if that member (who has decided to opt out from the system) is present in the Eligibility list, the member account won’t be activated again after the Membership List refresh upload is complete. 

Error Message

The system will detect that this particular member identifier is in an opt-out list and will skip adding the member to the eligibility list. Our OptOut Validator will display an error message like:

"Could not add member. Email address/Payroll Number has opted out of our services. The account has been deleted by the member." 

Account re-Registration

How can the same member re-register their account and regain access to the portal?  

Since the members opt-out list is a permanent deletion/deactivation mechanism that prevents re-registration using the same member identifier, there are two ways in which the member can regain access to the portal.  

Option 1: Program administrators can manually remove members from opt-out lists (and thus remove the identifier from the opt-out list) to allow re-registration, if confirmed appropriate. This is done via the MemberOptOut admin interface, with appropriate warnings when removing opt-outs. After the member is removed from the opt out list, program admin will be able to re-register the user using the same identifiers as before. 

Please note that this will be a new account and any past data for that member will not be restored and populated back into the account.  

Option 2: If the user remains in the opt out list, then new identifiers must be used (depending on the program’s registration criteria) in order for the member to be registered on that program again.

Please note that this will be a new account and any past data for that member will not be restored and populated back into the account.