2026-03-17: Personator API Ethnic Code and Ethnic Group Field Deprecation

2026-03-17: Personator API Ethnic Code and Ethnic Group Field Deprecation#

Introduction#

We would like to inform you of an upcoming change to the Personator API regarding the Ethnic Code and Ethnic Group output fields. These fields will be deprecated in alignment with regulatory requirements under the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act (PADFA), 15 U.S.C. 9901.

PADFA is a U.S. law designed to safeguard sensitive personal data from access, misuse, or transfer to foreign adversaries. The act places restrictions on the handling and distribution of certain categories of personal and demographic data, particularly where such data could pose privacy or national security risks. As part of our commitment to compliance with evolving data protection laws and to ensure responsible data usage, we are removing support for fields that fall within these sensitive categories.

Will I Be Affected?#

All customers who currently leverage the information returned by the Ethnic Code and Ethnic Group output columns will be affected by this change. These fields will no longer return values in API response after the update.

If your application currently relies on these fields for business logic, reporting, or decision-making, you may want to review and update those specific dependencies to account for the absence of values going forward.

Are There Any Code Changes Needed?#

No code changes are required. This update is fully backward compatible with your existing integration.

The Ethnic Code and Ethnic Group fields will continue to be included in the API response schema. The only change is that these fields will no longer be populated with data and will instead return empty values.

Because the structure of the response remains unchanged:

  • Existing API calls will continue to execute without error.

  • Response parsing, mappings, and deserialization logic will not be impacted.

  • No updates are needed for request formats or endpoints.

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We are providing this notice in advance to allow time for any future planning necessary.

Thank you for your attention to this update. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Tech Support at Tech@Melissa.com or call 800-MELISSA ext. 4 (800-635-4772 ext. 4).

Thanks,

The Melissa Team

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