When you’re building an application that processes personal data, compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) isn’t optional — it’s a legal requirement. Yet for many teams, the actual implementation can feel overwhelming: tracking consent, fulfilling access requests, ensuring auditability, encrypting data… and doing all of this in a way that scales.
That’s why we built GdprApi-Open — an open-source, developer-friendly API designed to take the complexity out of GDPR compliance.
Why GDPR Matters
The GDPR is one of the strictest privacy laws in the world, enforced by the European Union. It protects the personal data of EU citizens and applies to any organization — regardless of location — that processes such data.
Non-compliance isn’t just a slap on the wrist. Fines can reach up to €20 million or 4% of your global annual revenue, whichever is higher. Beyond penalties, data breaches and poor privacy practices damage trust, which is often harder to recover than money.
Our goal with GdprApi-Open is to give developers the building blocks they need to implement GDPR-compliant features quickly, securely, and consistently.
Overview of GdprApi-Open
GdprApi-Open is a .NET 8 Web API for managing GDPR-compliant operations in a multi-tenant system. It includes endpoints for tenant creation, audit logging, consent management, and handling data subject rights requests — all designed around GDPR requirements like:
- Accountability (Article 5(2)) — every action is logged and traceable.
- Data Minimization (Article 5(1)(c)) — only the data that’s needed is collected.
- Security of Processing (Article 32) — encryption, access control, and validation built-in.
What It Covers
Right out of the box, GdprApi-Open supports key GDPR articles, including:
| Article | Title | How it’s addressed |
|---|---|---|
| 5(1)(c) | Data Minimization | Stores only what’s necessary, with strict access controls. |
| 5(2) | Accountability | All operations are audited for compliance verification. |
| 6 | Lawfulness of Processing | Consent is explicit, logged, and tied to registration. |
| 7 | Conditions for Consent | Consent is granular, recorded, and revocable. |
| 15 | Right of Access | Tenants can securely retrieve their personal data. |
| 20 | Right to Data Portability | Data is exportable in JSON or CSV formats. |
| 25 | Data Protection by Design and Default | Pseudonymization and encryption applied by default. |
| 30 | Records of Processing Activities | Maintains a detailed audit trail. |
| 32 | Security of Processing | Data encryption, restricted access, and request validation. |
We’re continuously expanding coverage as new features are implemented.
Key Features
-
Multi-Tenant Support — Data is isolated per tenant using a dedicated
TenantId. - Comprehensive Audit Logging — Every significant operation is logged in MongoDB with full context.
- JWT-Based Authentication — Secure, tenant-specific access control.
- Consent & Data Subject Requests — Manage consent and fulfill GDPR rights requests like erasure and portability.
- Swagger Documentation — Interactive API docs with detailed XML comments.
- Rate Limiting — Prevents abuse by limiting requests per client.
- CORS Support — Restricts access to trusted origins.
Tech Stack
We chose a modern, reliable, and developer-friendly stack:
- .NET 8 (ASP.NET Core) — Performance, security, and long-term support.
- MongoDB — Flexible schema for storing tenant and audit data.
- Docker — Containerized MongoDB for easy local and cloud deployments.
- Swagger — Auto-generated, interactive API documentation.
- Postman — Quick testing and endpoint validation.
Getting Started
You’ll need:
- .NET 8 SDK
- Docker Desktop
- Visual Studio 2022 or VS Code
- Postman (optional, but handy for testing)
Clone the repo:
git clone https://github.com/HeyBaldur/GdprApi-Open.git
Run MongoDB in Docker:
docker run --name GdprMongoDb -d -p 27017:27017 mongo
Configure your environment variables in appsettings.json, then run the project from Visual Studio. Swagger UI will be available at:
https://localhost:<port>/swagger
From there, you can explore endpoints for tenant management, audit logs, and more.
Why Open Source?
Privacy and compliance are shared challenges. By making GdprApi-Open open source, we invite developers, businesses, and privacy advocates to collaborate — improving the API, expanding GDPR coverage, and helping more apps meet their legal and ethical obligations.
Whether you’re a solo dev building a SaaS product or part of a larger engineering team, GdprApi-Open can save you time, reduce risk, and give your users greater trust in your platform.
📌 Check it out: https://github.com/HeyBaldur/GdprApi-Open
💬 Contributions welcome — privacy is a team sport.
And finally, I invite you to join GoConnect.dev, an exclusive community for developers.
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