Hi Experts,
For some reason, GDPR has been turned off on our HubSpot portal for a few years (I’ve just joined my team for a couple of months). Now, I’m planning to turn it on and would love to ask for some pieces of advice as well as some explanation on the following points.
1. ‘Legal basis for processing data’ contact properties have not been captured (Unknown) while around 1/10 of our contacts (most likely a few years old) still have that property as known.
Question: my assumption is that, when GDPR is turned off, the legal basis property won’t work. Is that correct? Otherwise, how is it normally captured? Thanks.
2. Best practice advice -- Before turning on GDPR, I think that Legal basis properties must be in place for all contacts so that email communications can work properly. Is there a different approach, or what else should I fix for the GDPR to be re-enabled?
Anyone who has had experience in handling similar cases, please kindly advise some good practices.
Thanks a ton!
Hi @Albus_Bui,
The property for tracking the legal basis of data processing is functional both when the GDPR settings are enabled and disabled.
The field is either updated in bulk (Track legal basis of processing in HubSpot), upon form submission (Add data privacy and consent information to your HubSpot form (legacy)) or during contact import.
Regarding your second point, you can enable GDPR settings without checking the “Legal basis required” checkbox. Only when that is checked…
… will HubSpot hold back emails to contacts when they don’t have the opt-in for the subscription that the email is sent under.
Regardless of that setting it’s a good idea to maintain opt-status for contacts correctly. You can do that by following these steps: Manage your contacts' messaging subscriptions
Best regards!
Thanks so much for your prompt response @karstenkoehler - So I assume if we turn on the GDPR w/o checking the ‘Legal basis for emails’, we’re OK to send out emails to all Marketing contacts. And the ‘Legal basis for processing data’ property is only needed when we enable ‘Legal basis for emails’. Is that right? 
Some more related questions -- a majority of our contacts have that Legal basis property Unknown (but as you shared, it is functional regardless), what might be the cause of that? Does that imply any issue with our database quality?
Thank you!
Albus
Hi @Albus_Bui,
The legal basis for data processing doesn’t affect email sending at all. Only the the subscription opt-ins do: Manage your contacts' messaging subscriptions
But yes, if you enable the settings without checking the “Legal basis required” box, you can continue sending emails as you are now.
Best regards!
Thank you for your advice! 
