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Azure Key Vault customer data features​

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Azure Key Vault receives customer data during creation or update of vaults, managed HSM pools, keys, secrets, certificates, and managed storage accounts. This Customer data is directly visible in the Azure portal and through the REST API. Customer data can be edited or deleted by updating or deleting the object that contains the data.

System access logs are generated when a user or application accesses Key Vault. Detailed access logs are available to customers using Azure Insights.

Note

This article provides steps about how to delete personal data from the device or service and can be used to support your obligations under the GDPR. For general information about GDPR, see the GDPR section of the Microsoft Trust Center and the GDPR section of the Service Trust portal.

Identifying customer data

The following information identifies customer data within Azure Key Vault:

  • Access policies for Azure Key Vault contain object-IDs representing users, groups, or applications
  • Certificate subjects may include email addresses or other user or organizational identifiers
  • Certificate contacts may contain user email addresses, names, or phone numbers
  • Certificate issuers may contain email addresses, names, phone numbers, account credentials, and organizational details
  • Arbitrary tags can be applied to Objects in Azure Key Vault. These objects include vaults, keys, secrets, certificates, and storage accounts. The tags used may contain personal data
  • Azure Key Vault access logs contain object-IDs, UPNs, and IP addresses for each REST API call
  • Azure Key Vault diagnostic logs may contain object-IDs and IP addresses for REST API calls

Deleting customer data

The same REST APIs, Portal experience, and SDKs used to create vaults, keys, secrets, certificates, and managed storage accounts, are also able to update and delete these objects.

Soft-delete allows you to recover deleted data for 90 days after deletion. When using soft-delete, the data may be permanently deleted prior to the 90 days retention period expires by performing a purge operation. If the vault or subscription has been configured to block purge operations, it isn't possible to permanently delete data until the scheduled retention period has passed.

Exporting customer data

The same REST APIs, portal experience, and SDKs that are used to create vaults, keys, secrets, certificates, and managed storage accounts also allow you to view and export these objects.

Azure Key Vault access logging is an optional feature that can be turned on to generate logs for each REST API call. These logs will be transferred to a storage account in your subscription where you apply the retention policy that meets your organization's requirements.

Azure Key Vault diagnostic logs that contain personal data can be retrieved by making an export request in the User Privacy portal. This request must be made by the tenant administrator.

Next steps