Allow anonymous issue creation without anonymous viewing of issues in Jira

Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian apps on the Data Center platform.

Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.

*Except Fisheye and Crucible

Summary

You may want to enable anonymous Jira issue creation while keeping those issues private from anonymous viewers. For example, if you want to enable bug reporting without exposing all bug report tickets to anonymous users, this solution may suit your needs.

Note: Anonymous reporters will not receive notifications of issue updates because no user will be linked to the Reporter field of the issue.

To allow anonymous users to both create and browse all issues in the project, follow our Enable Jira issue creation for anonymous or logged-out users FAQ.

Solution

Let's walk through configuring anonymous issue creation on a single project. By the end, only members of a certain group will be able to view issues in our project, but anyone will be able to create them.

Setup issue security on the project

  1. Give the project role Administrators permission to Set Issue Security

  2. Create an Issue-Level Security Scheme and add a security level to that issue that permits access to only the users group

  3. Set that permission level as default

    • Now, any new issue created will only be visible to members of the users group

  4. Assign your new Issue Level Security Scheme to the project

Adjust the project permission scheme

  1. Edit the permission scheme for your desired project

  2. Give the group Anyone permission to Browse Projects and Create Issues

    • Optionally, give the group Anyone permission to Create Attachments as well

REST API attachments for anonymous issues

It's not possible to add attachments when creating an issue anonymously via REST API. It can't be done in a single API request, and can't be done in multiple API requests because anonymous users have no access to the issue once it has been created.

The following Suggestion has been raised for this: JRASERVER-70074 - As a user, I want to be able to create an issue with an attachment via the REST API

Assign the issue security level to pre-existing issues in the project

  1. Search for all issues in the project

  2. Select Tools-> Bulk change all x issues

  3. Select Edit

  4. Change the security level to the level created above

Now any existing issues won't be visible to anonymous users but can be made visible by Configuring issue-level security.

Updated on April 30, 2025

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