Data Retention Policy
1. Purpose
PostGuard aims to retain personal information only as long as reasonably necessary to provide the service, maintain security, comply with applicable legal obligations and resolve legitimate disputes.
2. Account information
Account, subscription, settings and verification information is normally retained while the account remains active. Customer account information covered by the deletion workflow is removed from the active production database when the account is deleted, subject to security-log and backup provisions below.
3. Uploaded images
Images are processed temporarily for the requested scan, including validation, metadata analysis, OCR, image analysis and public-source/web-detection analysis. The current service is designed so the original uploaded image is deleted from temporary storage after processing and is not retained as permanent customer media.
4. Captions and scan results
Derived information may be retained in Scan History, including captions, OCR text, metadata findings, risk scores, recommendations, landmark indicators, Google Vision analysis, web-detection/public-source intelligence, matching-page references and evidence classifications. These records may contain personal information. They are retained while required to provide customer Scan History and associated functionality, until account deletion or another applicable retention/deletion process removes them.
5. Alerts and cases
Customer alerts, cases, notes and related records are retained while the account remains active and required for the relevant functionality, then removed by the applicable account-deletion workflow unless another lawful reason requires retention.
6. Authentication tokens
Email-verification and password-reset tokens are short-lived, intended for one-time use and invalidated or removed when no longer required. Passwords are stored as password hashes, not readable passwords.
7. Security records
Security-event records are normally retained for up to 12 months to investigate compromise/abuse and protect users and infrastructure. A particular record may be kept longer where reasonably necessary for an active investigation, dispute or legal obligation, with exceptional retention appropriately documented.
8. Payment and subscription information
Stripe processes payment-card information; PostGuard does not store complete card details. PostGuard may retain subscription plan/status, Stripe customer/subscription identifiers, trial information and billing status while required to administer the account and thereafter where reasonably necessary for legal, accounting, dispute-resolution or security purposes.
9. Transactional email
PostGuard uses transactional-email infrastructure for verification, password resets, security and service messages. Delivery records should be minimised to information reasonably necessary for delivery, troubleshooting, fraud prevention and security.
10. Account deletion
The current deletion workflow is intended to remove applicable customer-owned scans/checks, alerts, cases, principals/profile records, customer audit records, authentication tokens and user-account records from the active database. Security-event records are treated separately.
11. Database backups
PostGuard maintains database export and point-in-time recovery capability. Deleted information may remain temporarily in protected backups until expiry under the infrastructure provider's configured lifecycle. Backups are for disaster recovery/business continuity and should not ordinarily restore individual deleted customer records to active production. Following a production restoration, PostGuard should reapply applicable deletion requirements where necessary.
12. Third-party processors
Providers supporting hosting/database infrastructure, image/OCR analysis, transactional email and payments may have their own applicable retention obligations. PostGuard should configure provider retention where available and maintain appropriate contractual/data-protection arrangements.
13. Legal holds
Particular information may be retained beyond an ordinary period where reasonably necessary to comply with law, respond to lawful authority, establish/exercise/defend legal claims, investigate fraud/serious abuse or investigate a significant security incident. Such retention should be limited and reviewed when the reason ends.
14. Review
This policy will be reviewed when PostGuard introduces social-media OAuth/publishing, additional AI providers, new monitoring capabilities, new customer-data categories, enterprise integrations or material infrastructure changes. Retention and deletion controls should be periodically tested against the technical implementation.
15. Contact
Retention or deletion questions can be sent to security@postguard.uk.
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