What considerations should be taken into account when implementing a contact form on a website, in terms of data storage, email handling, and file uploads, to ensure both functionality and legal compliance?

When implementing a contact form on a website, it is important to consider data storage, email handling, and file uploads to ensure functionality and legal compliance. Data should be stored securely, emails should be sent using a reliable service, and file uploads should be restricted to safe file types and sizes. 

```php
// Example PHP code for handling a contact form submission with file upload

<?php
// Check if form is submitted
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
    // Validate form fields
    $name = $_POST["name"];
    $email = $_POST["email"];
    $message = $_POST["message"];
    
    // Check if file is uploaded
    if(isset($_FILES['file'])) {
        $file_name = $_FILES['file']['name'];
        $file_size = $_FILES['file']['size'];
        $file_tmp = $_FILES['file']['tmp_name'];
        $file_type = $_FILES['file']['type'];
        
        // Check file size and type
        if($file_size > 1048576) {
            echo "File is too large. Please upload a file under 1MB.";
        } else {
            // Move file to uploads directory
            move_uploaded_file($file_tmp, "uploads/" . $file_name);
        }
    }
    
    // Send email
    $to = "your@email.com";
    $subject = "Contact Form Submission";
    $message = "Name: $name\nEmail: $email\nMessage: $message";
    $headers = "From: $email";
    
    // Send email with attachment
    if(isset($file_name)) {
        $file = "uploads/" . $file_name;
        $content = file_get_contents($file);
        $content = chunk_split(base64_encode($content));
        $uid = md5(uniqid(time()));
        $headers .= "\r\nMIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
        $headers .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"".$uid."\"\r\n\r\n";
        $headers .= "This is a multi-part message in MIME format.\r\n";
        $headers .= "--".$uid."\r\n";
        $headers .= "Content-type:text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";
        $headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\r\n\r\n";
        $headers .= $message."\r\n

Keywords

data storage email handling file uploads legal compliance PHP functions

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