GatherPress

Last updated July 11, 2026, Version 0.34

• Documentation for users

• Core concepts
• Getting started
• Creating and managing events
• Topics
• RSVP system
• Blocks
  • Event Query block
  • RSVP and Inner Blocks
  • RSVP Response and Inner Blocks
• Venues
• Emails
• Calendar feeds
• Displaying event-related information elsewhere (ID Override)
• User roles and permissions
• Update your privacy policy
• Where to get help

Inform your visitors about GatherPress’ use of third-party services.

Every plugin that collects, uses, or stores user data, or passes it to an external source or third party, should add a section of suggested text to the privacy policy postbox. This is best done with wp_add_privacy_policy_content( $plugin_name, $policy_text ).

This will allow site administrators to pull that information into their site’s privacy policy.

Source: WordPress Plugin Handbook

GatherPress is following this best-practice and offers some text suggestions, you may want to add to your privacy policy. This makes it easy to copy & paste the relevant snippets into your policy.

With the help of contributors this prepared text may even be already translated into your language.

Go to Settings > Privacy > Policy Guide to find a new ‘GatherPress‘ dropdown in the ‘Policies’ list

Event update emails and GDPR consent

GatherPress can email members about event updates. Out of the box, every user is treated as opted in to these emails until they uncheck “Yes, I want to receive updates and information about events from the organizers.” in the Notifications section of their user profile.

The GDPR — the European Union’s privacy regulation, known in Germany as the DSGVO — requires affirmative consent for this kind of communication. An opt-out default generally does not qualify, so if your site operates under the GDPR or a similar privacy law, you should flip the default so users are opted out until they actively opt in:

add_filter( 'gatherpress_event_updates_default_opt_in', static function () {
    return '0';
} );

Drop the snippet into a must-use plugin, a site-specific plugin, or your theme’s functions.php.

The filter only controls the default for users who have never touched the setting — anyone who has explicitly saved a preference in their profile keeps it. See the gatherpress_event_updates_default_opt_in hook reference for details.

Redacting RSVP IP addresses and user agents

RSVPs are stored as WordPress comments, so the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent are recorded by default. To help comply with GDPR/DSGVO or other privacy regulations, you can redact this information with the same WordPress-native filters that apply to regular comments:

add_filter( 'pre_comment_user_ip', static function () {
    return '127.0.0.1';
} );

add_filter( 'pre_comment_user_agent', static function () {
    return '';
} );

Drop the snippet into a must-use plugin, a site-specific plugin, or your theme’s functions.php. It applies to all RSVP paths — form submissions, REST/AJAX submissions, and waiting-list promotions.

The same mechanism exposes the rest of WordPress’s comment-data filters to RSVPs, should you want to sanitize or override them:

• pre_comment_author_name
• pre_comment_author_email
• pre_comment_author_url
• pre_comment_content