Configure Privacy for Session Recording
The Privacy tab allows you to control how visitor data is captured and displayed in session recordings.
Since session recordings track real user interactions, including clicks, navigation, and form inputs, it is essential to ensure that sensitive or personally identifiable information is not exposed. These settings help you balance data visibility and user privacy while analyzing behavior.
Why Privacy Protection Matters
Session recordings can capture detailed user activity across your website.
Without proper configuration, sensitive information such as:
- Personal details (name, email, phone number)
- Login credentials
- Payment or transactional data
Privacy controls help you:
- Prevent exposure of sensitive data
- Maintain compliance with data protection policies
- Ensure safe analysis of user behavior
- Build trust while collecting behavioral insights
Default Privacy Behavior
PageSense applies basic privacy protection by default:
- All user inputs (keystrokes) are masked automatically. Any data entered by visitors is displayed as
*in recordings - Actual values entered by users are never shown
This ensures that sensitive input data is not exposed, even without additional configuration.
Privacy Controls
You can further control how specific elements, inputs, and URLs are handled in recordings.
Mask Selected Elements
This option allows you to hide specific elements on your webpage from appearing in session recordings.
Use this when certain sections of your page contain sensitive or confidential information.
What Happens When You Mask an Element
- The element’s content will not be visible in recordings
- Any user input within the element will remain hidden
- Interactions may still be tracked structurally, but no actual data or content will be exposed
How to Select Elements
You can define elements to mask using the following methods:
Enter CSS Selectors Manually
If you are familiar with your webpage structure, you can directly provide CSS selectors.
Examples:
#login-form
targets a specific element using ID
.payment-section
targets all elements with that class
This method is useful for applying masking across multiple pages with similar layouts.
Select Elements from the Page
You can visually choose elements using the page selector tool:
- Enter the webpage URL in the preview section
- Load the page within the editor
- Click on the elements you want to mask
- The corresponding selector is automatically added
This is helpful when you are unsure about selectors or want quicker configuration.
Use the zps-mask Attribute
You can mask elements directly at the code level by adding the
zps-mask attribute.Example:
When this attribute is applied:
- The element is automatically masked in all recordings
- No manual configuration is required in the UI
- Masking is consistently applied across all pages where the element exists
This approach is ideal for enforcing privacy rules programmatically.
Mask All Form Inputs
Enable this option to automatically hide all input-related elements on the page.
- All user-entered values in form fields will be masked
- Applies to inputs such as text fields, dropdowns, and text areas
This is useful when your page contains multiple forms and you want to ensure complete input-level privacy without selecting elements individually.
Note : When enabled, PageSense automatically masks interactions within common input-related elements such as text fields, buttons, dropdowns, labels, and text areas to prevent sensitive user-entered information from appearing in recordings.
Hide URL Query Parameters
This option removes query parameters from URLs displayed in session recordings.
- Only the base URL is shown
- Additional parameters (such as tracking IDs or user-specific data) are hidden
This prevents sensitive or identifiable information from being exposed through URLs.
Cookie Notification
If your website requires informing visitors about tracking or cookie usage:
- Configure this under Project Privacy Settings (Refer to the dedicated documentation for setup details)
How Privacy Settings Affect Recordings
- Masked elements will not display their content in playback
- User-entered values are always hidden and never shown in plain text
- Interactions are recorded, but sensitive data is not exposed
- URL parameters are removed when the option is enabled
- These settings apply to all sessions recorded under the experiment
Important Considerations
- Masking hides data visibility, not the occurrence of interactions
- Structural actions (like clicks or navigation) may still be tracked
- Privacy settings should be configured before launching the experiment
- Changes may not retroactively affect previously recorded sessions
Best Practices
- Always mask elements that collect sensitive or personal data
- Use selective element masking to retain useful context in recordings
- Apply the
zps-maskattribute for consistent masking across pages - Hide URL parameters if they contain identifiable information
- Review privacy settings carefully before starting the recording
Proceed to Next Step
After configuring privacy:
- Click Next
- Review and launch your session recording experiment
We’ve designed this documentation to guide you every step of the way. If
you need further assistance or have any questions, don’t hesitate to
contact us at support@zohopagesense.com - we’re always here to help!
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