Sensitive data

Please note that according to our Privacy policy, password fields are never recorded by default and no action is required to prevent their recording.

ClickTale can be configured to not record data that is typed in certain fields of your choosing. There are several ways to record a page without recording sensitive data such as credit card information.

Customers on the Enterprise subscription level have additional options to protect sensitive and private information. Please contact a ClickTale Integration Specialist via our contact us form or inquire with your Account Manager.

ClickTaleSensitive

The easiest way to prevent user input from being recorded in a field is by adding a class called ClickTaleSensitive to the input element of the matching field. This is normally used for fields such as credit card numbers, social security numbers and email addresses.

If you have an input element that looks like this:

<input id="CCNum" type="text">

change it to be:

<input id="CCNum" type="text" class="ClickTaleSensitive">

If you already have a class attribute defined on the input element then just add ClickTaleSensitive separated by a space to the previous value.

The characters that will be typed in the protected field will be masked on the client. Only asterisks will be transferred and recorded. The masking is not done on the server which is less secure.

JavaScript

If you are unable to add the ClickTaleSensitive class attribute directly to an elements with HTML code you can consider doing it with JavaScript code. This will allow you to mark nodes as sensitive in the same block of code where you execute your ClickTale command. Here is an example of what you can do:

var n=document.getElementById('sensitiveElementID');
if(n) n.className+=n.className?' ClickTaleSensitive':'ClickTaleSensitive';

ClickTaleEventsMask

The ClickTaleEventsMask variable allows you to customize the type of data that is recorded by ClickTale.
By default all options are enabled. Subtract the following values before the call to ClickTale() to disable various features:

• ClickTaleEventsMask-=1 - Disables the recording of mouse movements (mousemove)
  
• ClickTaleEventsMask-=2 - Disables the recording of low level mouse clicks (mouseup, mousedown)
  
• ClickTaleEventsMask-=8 - Disables the recording of high level mouse clicks (click, context)
  
• ClickTaleEventsMask-=4 - Disables the recording of key strokes (keydown, keyup, keypress)
  
• ClickTaleEventsMask-=16 - Disables the recording of coordinate correction data
  
• ClickTaleEventsMask-=32 - Disables the recording of client javascript errors
  

For example, ClickTale can be configured not to record any keyboard input by adding the following line in your bottom tracking code:

ClickTaleEventsMask-=4;

Right before the call to the ClickTale function. When configured this way, the tracking script will not do any monitoring of keyboard events. These can be combined eg. to block recording of key strokes AND client javascript errors a value of 36 could be used.

ClickTaleExcludeBlock

You can use ClickTaleExcludeBlock to block any sensitive data you display back to the visitor from recorded. Please see the ClickTaleExcludeBlock wiki entry for more info on how to use this feature.

Preventing Auto-Refill Data In Playback

Sometimes when a visitor returns to a form he has previously filled out, the information he entered is automatically filled in by the site server. This data might appear during playback (even if the ClickTaleEventsMask or the ClickTaleSensitive methods were employed). The simplest way to prevent this type of data from appearing in recordings is to simply identify the server-side code in charge of adding it to the page, and preventing that code from running if the page is accessed by the ClickTale bot (you can simply add a condition that if the user agent string is "ClickTale bot", the autorefilling code doesn't run).

Another option is to use ClickTaleExcludeBlock for the relevant form field in order to prevent it from being recorded completely, and use ClickTaleExcludeBlock’s alternative content feature to place an input field instead of the one you would like to mask. However this option is more complicated to execute for larger, more dynamic forms, and therefore less recommended.