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Data Subject Access Request API

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) requires businesses to provide all data about an end user upon request. This Data Subject Access Request (DSAR) API makes it easy to retrieve all data about a user.

Get interactive examples for this API

The Amplitude Developers Postman profile has a collection of the example requests included in this documentation, including detailed responses for each call. You don't need a Postman account to browse.

If you already use Postman, you can fork and run the collection in Postman.

Authorization

This API uses basic authentication, using an org-level API key and secret key instead of a project-level API key. To request an org-level API key, submit a ticket to the support team at support.amplitude.com.

Pass base64-encoded credentials in the request header like {{org-api-key}}:{{org-secret_key}}. org-api-key replaces username, and org-secret-key replaces the password.

Your authorization header should look something like this:

--header 'Authorization: Basic YWhhbWwsdG9uQGFwaWdlZS5jb206bClwYXNzdzByZAo'

API overview

To support data volume, this API works asynchronously. Getting user data happens in three steps:

  1. Make a POST request, which returns a requestId.
  2. Make a GET request using the requestId to check the status of the job.
  3. When the job finishes, make a GET request to fetch a list of URLs from which to get the data files.

Considerations

  • You can expect about one file per month per app for which the user has data.
  • Each download URL requires the same auth credentials to access.
  • Because the API is asynchronous, you must poll to check the status of the request. See the Rate Limits section to help select the appropriate polling rate.

Output

Each file is gzipped, and the contents adhere to the following rules:

  • One line per event
  • Each line is a JSON object
  • No order guarantee

Example Output

{"amplitude_id":123456789,"app":12345,"event_time":"2020-02-15 01:00:00.123456","event_type":"first_event","server_upload_time":"2020-02-18 01:00:00.234567"}
{"amplitude_id":123456789,"app":12345,"event_time":"2020-02-15 01:00:11.345678","event_type":"second_event","server_upload_time":"2020-02-18 01:00:11.456789"}
{"amplitude_id":123456789,"app":12345,"event_time":"2020-02-15 01:02:00.123456","event_type":"third_event","server_upload_time":"2020-02-18 01:02:00.234567"}

Rate limits

All DSAR endpoints share a budget of 14.4 K “cost” per hour. POST requests cost 8, and GET requests cost 1. Requests beyond this count get 429 response codes.

In general for each POST, there is typically one output file per month per project the user has events for. For example, if you are fetching 13 months of data for a user with data in two projects, expect about 26 files.

If you need to get data for 40 users per hour, you can spend 14400 / 40 = 360 cost per request. Conservatively allocating 52 GETs for output files (twice the computed amount) and 8 for the initial POST, you can poll for the status of the request 360 - 8 - 52 = 300 times. Given the 3 day SLA for results (4,320 minutes), this allows for checking the status every 4320 / 300 ~= 15 minutes over 3 days. A practical usage might be to have a service which runs every 20 minutes, posting 20 new requests and checking on the status of all outstanding requests.

SLAs

  • Request jobs complete within 3 days.
  • Request result expires in 2 days.
  • Users with more than 100k events per month aren't supported.

Example client implementation

Python implementation
base_url = 'https://amplitude.com/api/2/dsar/requests'
payload = {
  "amplitudeId": AMPLITUDE_ID,
  "startDate": "2019-03-01",
  "endDate": "2020-04-01"
}
r = requests.post(base_url, auth=(API_KEY, SECRET_KEY), data=payload)
request_id = r.json().get('requestId')
time.sleep(POLL_DELAY)
while (True):
    r = requests.get(f'{base_url}/{request_id}', auth=(API_KEY, SECRET_KEY))
    response = r.json()
    if response.get('status') == 'failed':
        sys.exit(1)
    if response.get('status') == 'done':
        break
    time.sleep(POLL_INTERVAL)
for url in response.get('urls'):
    r = requests.get(url, auth=(API_KEY, SECRET_KEY), allow_redirects=True)
    index = url.split('/')[-1]
    filename = f'{AMPLITUDE_ID}-{index}.gz'
    with open(f'{OUTPUT_DIR}/{filename}','wb') as f:
        f.write(r.content)

Create data request

Create a request for user data.

curl --location --request POST 'https://amplitude.com/api/2/dsar/requests' \
--header 'Accept: application/json' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-u '{org-api-key}:{org-secret_key}' \
--data-raw '{
    "userId": 12345,
    "startDate": "2020-04-24",
    "endDate": "2022-02-20"
}'

POST /api/2/dsar/requests HTTP/1.1
Host: amplitude.com
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Basic {{org-api-key}}:{{org-secret_key}} # credentials must be base64 encoded
{
    "userId": 12345,
    "startDate": "2020-04-24",
    "endDate": "2022-02-20"
}
More example requests (click to expand)
Create request by user ID

This example creates a request by user ID 12345, between the dates of April 24, 2020 and February 20, 2022.

curl --location --request POST 'https://amplitude.com/api/2/dsar/requests' \
--header 'Accept: application/json' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Basic YWhhbWwsdG9uQGFwaWdlZS5jb206bClwYXNzdzByZAo' \
--data-raw '{
    "userId": 12345,
    "startDate": "2020-04-24",
    "endDate": "2022-02-20"
}'

POST /api/2/dsar/requests HTTP/1.1
Host: amplitude.com
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Basic YWhhbWwsdG9uQGFwaWdlZS5jb206bClwYXNzdzByZAo
Content-Length: 83

{
    "userId": 12345,
    "startDate": "2020-04-24",
    "endDate": "2022-02-20"
}
Create request by Amplitude ID

This example creates a request by Amplitude ID 90102919293, between the dates of April 24, 2020 and February 20, 2022.

curl --location --request POST 'https://amplitude.com/api/2/dsar/requests' \
--header 'Accept: application/json' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Basic YWhhbWwsdG9uQGFwaWdlZS5jb206bClwYXNzdzByZAo' \
--data-raw '{
    "amplitudeId": 90102919293,
    "startDate": "2020-04-24",
    "endDate": "2022-02-20"
}'

POST /api/2/dsar/requests HTTP/1.1
Host: amplitude.com
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Basic YWhhbWwsdG9uQGFwaWdlZS5jb206bClwYXNzdzByZAo
Content-Length: 83

{
    "amplitudeId": 90102919293,
    "startDate": "2020-04-24",
    "endDate": "2022-02-20"
}

Body parameter

Name Description
userId Required if amplitudeID isn't set. The user ID of the user to request data for.
amplitudeId Required if userID isn't set. Integer. The Amplitude ID of the user to request data for.
startDate Required. Date. The start date for the data request.
endDate Required. Date. The end date for the data request.

Response

When successful, the call returns a 202 Accepted response and requestID. Use the requestID to poll the job status.

{
    "requestId": 53367
}

Get data request status

Poll the data request job to get its status. 

curl --location --request GET 'https://amplitude.com/api/2/dsar/requests/requestID' \
--header 'Accept: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Basic {{org-api-key}}:{{org-secret_key}}' #credentials must be base64 encoded

GET /api/2/dsar/requests/requestID HTTP/1.1
Host: amplitude.com
Accept: application/json
Authorization: Basic {{org-api-key}}:{{org-secret_key}} #credentials must be base64 encoded
Example: Poll a specific request (click to expand)

This example polls request 53367.

curl --location --request GET 'https://amplitude.com/api/2/dsar/requests/53367' \
--header 'Accept: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Basic YWhhbWwsdG9uQGFwaWdlZS5jb206bClwYXNzdzByZAo'

GET /api/2/dsar/requests/53367 HTTP/1.1
Host: amplitude.com
Accept: application/json
Authorization: Basic YWhhbWwsdG9uQGFwaWdlZS5jb206bClwYXNzdzByZAo

Path variables

Name Description
requestId Required. The request ID retrieved with the create data request call.

Response body

Name Description
requestId Integer. The ID of the request.
userId String. The User Id of the user to request data for.
amplitudeId Integer. The Amplitude ID of the user to request data for.
startDate Date. The start date for the data request.
endDate The end date for the data request.
status staging: not started
submitted: in progress
done: job completed and download URLs populated
failed: job failed, may need to retry
failReason String. If the job failed, contains Information about the failure.
urls Array of strings. A list of download URLs for the data.
expires Data. The date that the output download links expire.

Get output files

Download a returned output file.

The download link is valid for two days. Most clients used to send API requests automatically download the data from the S3 link. If your API client doesn't automatically download the file from the link, access it manually using your org API key as the username and your org secret key as the password.

curl --location --request GET 'https://analytics.amplitude.com/api/2/dsar/requests/:request_id/outputs/:output_id' \
-u '{org-api-key}:{org-secret_key}'

GET /api/2/dsar/requests/request_id/outputs/:output_id HTTP/1.1
Host: analytics.amplitude.com
Authorization: Basic {{org-api-key}}:{{org-secret_key}} # credentials must be base64 encoded
Example: Get output for a specific request ID (click to expand)

This example gets output with ID 0 for request 53367.

curl --location --request GET 'https://analytics.amplitude.com/api/2/dsar/requests/53367/outputs/0' \
--header 'Authorization: Basic YWhhbWwsdG9uQGFwaWdlZS5jb206bClwYXNzdzByZAo'

GET /api/2/dsar/requests/53367/outputs/0 HTTP/1.1
Host: amplitude.com
Accept: application/json
Authorization: Basic YWhhbWwsdG9uQGFwaWdlZS5jb206bClwYXNzdzByZAo

Path variables

Name
 Description
request_id Required. Integer. The ID of the request. Returned with the original GET request.
output_id Required. Integer. The ID of the output to download. An integer at the end of the URL returned in the status response after the job finishes.
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