Retention Period
What does retention period mean?
Retention period refers to the specific amount of time that an organization stores personal data before it is securely deleted or anonymized. This duration is often defined by law, regulation, or internal policy and is based on the purpose for which the data was originally collected.
How does retention period work?
Companies set different retention periods depending on the type of data and legal requirements. After the retention period ends, data must be:
- Deleted, if no longer needed.
- Archived, if justified by public interest, scientific research, or statistical purposes.
- Anonymized, to remove personal identifiers while retaining utility.
Having a clearly defined retention period helps minimize data risk and exposure to breaches, supports data minimization and accountability principles under laws like the GDPR, CCPA, and others and helps that companies don’t keep data longer than necessary, overall reducing legal and operational risk.
FAQs about retention period
Based on legal obligations, industry standards, and the original reason for collecting the data.
Data must be securely deleted, anonymized, or archived with justification.
There are no specific durations. Companies must determine appropriate periods and document them.
Yes, under the "right to erasure," individuals can request deletion even before the retention period ends.
Yes. Data in backups must also be deleted or anonymized when retention expires.