Opt Out of emails has removed contact

Hi I have been sending some emails & campaigns and I have noticed that some of our members have opted out but it has actually removed them from the contact record. I never asked for this to be done, is there an easy way of added them back and do you know why it has done this.

I am not worried that they have opted out of the emails, but they are customers so still wanted them on the system.

Any ideas? Thanks

Hi, @Maria_Hailey. Do you mean the contact record no longer exists? The only ways I can think to delete a contact would be to manually click the delete button on a contact record or list of records, fulfilling on a GDPR removal request (redacting the contact…which is also a manual process) or an integration that deletes contacts via the API. Do any of those sound relevant?