Data Retention Summary

Why Affordit retains information

Affordit retains information only where there is a defined service, legal, security, accounting, support or dispute-handling purpose. Information should not be kept simply because storage is available.

The detailed retention schedule records the category, owner, purpose, lawful basis, active period, archive or backup period and deletion method. That restricted schedule must be approved against the live systems before exact public periods are published.

Purpose-based retention

Each data category should have a defined purpose, owner, active retention period, backup period, deletion trigger and deletion method. Exact periods must be approved in the internal retention schedule before publication.

Account and plan information

Account and saved-plan information is intended to remain available while the account is active. A limited closure period may support recovery, security, legal obligations or dispute handling before deletion or de-identification.

Shared-plan links, plan updates and related history should follow the same ownership and deletion model unless a separate purpose requires a different approved period.

Other record categories

• Support records: according to issue type
• Payment and accounting records: as required by law
• Security logs: for a proportionate security period
• Consent and policy records: long enough to evidence the choice or version relied upon
• Institution-provided records: returned or deleted at contract end unless law requires retention
• Backups: until expiry under a documented rolling schedule

Account deletion and user requests

Deletion requests should be propagated to relevant service providers. Backup copies expire through their rolling schedule rather than ad hoc deletion, subject to legal, security and dispute-handling exceptions.

Where information cannot be deleted immediately, the reason, restricted use and expected expiry should be recorded. Deletion should not remove evidence that Affordit is legally required to retain.

Institutions and contract end

Where Affordit processes institution-supplied information under documented instructions, that information should be returned or deleted at the end of the arrangement unless law requires retention.

An offboarding record may confirm access removal, relevant subprocessor actions, deletion or return, backup expiry and any limited exception.

Backups and technical logs

Backups expire through a documented rolling schedule and are protected from ordinary product access. Restoring a backup must not silently reintroduce information that should remain deleted without an appropriate recovery procedure.

Security and operational logs should be retained for a proportionate period and minimised so they do not contain unnecessary plan contents, passwords, card details or access tokens.

Review status

Exact periods are deliberately not invented in this draft. They will be published only after the production data inventory, supplier arrangements, legal duties and recovery schedules have been validated.