Control what PII Data is Collected

Remus -

We're introducing a new feature that lets you directly control what PII (personally identifiable information) data Pipe will collect and store together with each recording.

This new feature sits alongside the existing "Do Not Store Personal Metadata" option, which, when turned on, ensures that we delete the data after processing it.

The PII data in question are:

  1. Camera name
  2. Microphone name
  3. Referer (via window.location)
  4. User agent header
  5. IPv4

Historically, Pipe collected and saved all the data above by default. This remains unchanged. However, now you can turn on or off the collection and saving of any of the above data individually.

The referer, microphone name and camera name are collected through the recording client. Turning OFF their collection means the data will not be sent to us at all.

The microphone name and camera name are collected through the desktop recording client. Turning OFF their collection means the data will not be sent to us at all. This data is also unavailable when uploading recordings via the desktop recording client or mobile native recording client.

The referer is always read by our recording client from window.location and sent to us as needed but turning OFF its collection does not prevent the browser from naturally sending the same information to us through the referer header attached to some HTTP requests.

The user agent is naturally included with every HTTP request, and we can't technically prevent it from reaching us.

The IPv4 is naturally included with every TCP request, and we can't technically prevent it from reaching us.

As a result, when collecting the referer, user agent, or IPv4, is turned off, we just don't save the data together with the recording.

Configuring PII data collection

You can access this new setting when you create a new environment or when you edit one of your environments.

The setting is named PII Data Collection.

Some considerations

Disabling the collection of any PII data means that the data won't be available at all.

So this will affect the data present in:

Only the HTTP referer, IPv4, and user agent header are collected for uploads made through the desktop recording client and any recording uploaded through the native mobile recording client. The camera and microphone name are not available, so they are not collected.

For this setting to work correctly for the referer, camera name and microphone name, you need to use the latest version of the 2.0 recording client (pipe.js hosted by us). If, for some reason, you're self-hosting pipe.js, you need the 21st of October 2024 version or newer.

The added transparency and option to not touch or save this data will help customers comply with their privacy requirements.