Data Retention and Secure Deletion Policies
How long to keep data and how to delete it
Keeping data indefinitely increases risk without adding value: every record that's no longer needed is an additional liability in the event of a breach and, in many jurisdictions, a direct regulatory violation. A retention policy defines, for each type of data, how long it must be kept according to its legal, contractual or operational purpose, and what happens when that period expires. Secure deletion, for its part, isn't the same as moving a file to the trash; it requires processes that guarantee the data can't be recovered, such as cryptographic erasure of the keys that protect it or physically overwriting the storage medium. A common challenge is that data is usually duplicated in backups, test environments and old exports, so deleting the original record in production isn't enough if those copies remain forgotten in another system for years.