Can we disable encryption to decrypt the data?

When we set up encrypted data for a form, it was not clear to us that the data would be essentially useless since we cannot download the submissions.

Major fail.

My question is this:

If I remove encryption from the form at this point, 

a) will the data remain, and

b) will it now be unencrypted?

 

 

You are correct, if you disable the encryption:

1) The old data will remain encrypted.

2) The new data will be received without encryption.

If you need any further assistance, please let us know.

Yes, I do need further assistance. By what mechanism can we export the encrypted data?
This is a bizarre issue. It implies that Jotform thinks a user would not want to export data, encrypted or not.
Thanks.
...

You have a couple of options to choose from when it comes to exporting or downloading your Submission Data.

Related guides: 

How-to-Download-Form-Submissions-as-Excel-CSV-PDF 

How-to-export-all-of-your-data-at-once 

However, with encrypted data, all these export features will not help since the data is encrypted to begin with. We take security seriously, specially for this feature, which is why only you can decrypt your data, and you can only do that on your Submissions Page (and emails) and not elsewhere.

This was explicitly mentioned on our detailed guide about Form Encryption which I'll be linking below.

Complete guide: What-Are-Encrypted-Forms-and-How-to-Use-Them-as-Expert 

So to sum up, the reasons why your encrypted data is not helpful when exported are:

1. Data can't be decrypted by anyone except you, using your private key.

2. Even with the private key, you're bound to decrypt your data through the Submissions Page or via Email only.

3. Everything else (e.g. apps, exports, downloads, etc.) will always be encrypted.