GDPR Compliance in SVN: How to Detect and Erase Sensitive Data
The commit history is a liability. One wrong push can expose personal data for years, and with GDPR, that risk is expensive, public, and permanent. If your codebase lives in Subversion (SVN), you carry more exposure than you think. GDPR compliance is not optional. The regulation covers every repository that contains personal data—names, emails, IP addresses, even log fragments that reveal identity.
GDPR in SVN means taking control of what lives in your repo, past and present. Unlike Git, SVN keeps a linear revision history stored on the server. Every change—even deleted files—remains in old revisions unless purged. A single accidental commit of personal data can persist far beyond its intended lifetime. If a data subject requests deletion, you must prove that the data is gone from all revisions. That means rewriting history at the repository level, not just patching the latest commit.
SVN administrators need procedures for scanning repositories, identifying sensitive content, and scrubbing it across all revisions. Tools like svnadmin dump with post-processing filters can rewrite history and reload the repository without the unwanted data. After cleanup, access controls and pre-commit hooks should be tightened to block any future commits containing personal data. Log files and backups must also be purged or rotated, as GDPR requires you to erase data from all storage systems, not just production.
Compliance also depends on documentation. You must track what checks you run, when you purge, and who approved the change. Under GDPR, the burden of proof is yours. Failing to show your work can be as damaging as failing to do it. Automating scans and reports into your CI/CD pipeline will help you stay ahead of risk while keeping your audit trail complete.
SVN was built for persistence. GDPR demands forgetting. Bridging that gap requires discipline, automation, and a clear deletion strategy that covers every commit and every backup.
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