## 13.13.1.1.1.2  Deletion of Personal Data
Agricultural Contract Management might process data (personal data) that is subject to the data protection laws applicable in specific countries as described in SAP Note 1825544 .
To enable even complex scenarios, SAP simplifies existing deletion functionality to cover data objects that are personal data by default. For this purpose, SAP uses SAP Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) to help you set up a compliant information lifecycle management process in an efficient and flexible manner. The functions that support the simplified blocking and deletion of personal data are not delivered as a big bang implementation but in several waves. Scenarios or products that are not specified in the notes 1825608 (Simplified Blocking and Deletion of Central Business Partner) and 2007926 (Simplified Blocking and Deletion of Customer / Vendor Master Data) are so far not subject of simplified blocking and deletion. Nevertheless, it is also possible to destroy personal data for these scenarios or products. In these cases, you have to use existing archiving or deletion functionality or implement an individual retention management of relevant business data along its entire lifecycle.
The SAP Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) component supports the entire software lifecycle including the storage, retention, blocking, and deletion of data. Agricultural Contract Management uses SAP ILM to support the deletion of personal data as described in the following sections:
- SAP delivers an end of purpose check for Agricultural Contract Management.
- All applications register an end of purpose check (EoP) in the Customizing settings for the blocking and deletion of the customer and vendor master. For information about the Customizing of blocking and deletion for Agricultural Contract Management, see Configuration: Simplified Blocking and Deletion.
## End of Purpose Check (EoP)
An end of purpose check determines whether data is still relevant for business activities based on the retention period defined for the data. The retention period of data consists of the following phases:
- Phase one: The relevant data is actively used.
- Phase two: The relevant data is actively available in the system
- Phase three: The relevant data needs to be retained for other reasons.
For example, processing of data is no longer required for the primary business purpose, but to comply with legal rules for retention, the data must still be available. In phase three, the relevant data is blocked.
Blocking of data prevents the business users of SAP applications from displaying and using data that may include personal data and is no longer relevant for business activities.
Blocking of data can impact system behavior in the following ways:
- Display: The system does not display blocked data.
- Change: It is not possible to change a business object that contains blocked data.
- Create: It is not possible to create a business object that contains blocked data.
- Copy/Follow-Up: It is not possible to copy a business object or perform follow-up activities for a business object that contains blocked data
- Search: It is not possible to search for blocked data or to search for a business object using blocked data in the search criteria.
It is possible to display blocked data if a user has special authorization; however, it is still not possible to create, change, copy, or perform follow-up activities on blocked data.
For information about the configuration settings required to enable this three-phase based end of purpose check, see Process Flow and Configuration: Simplified Blocking and Deletion.
If you still want to block the data, the dependent data must be deleted by using the existing archiving and deletion tools or by using any other customer-specific solution.