This policy describes ProTek's standard retention and deletion practices. A contract, legal hold, regulatory requirement, insurance requirement, active dispute, or documented business need may require a different period.
1. Thirty-Day Service Data Rule
Temporary customer file copies, recovery working copies, diagnostic images containing customer file content, and service-created backups are retained for no more than 30 days after service completion.
They may be deleted sooner at the customer's verified request. The 30-day period does not guarantee that a copy will remain available for the full period, and customers remain responsible for maintaining their own backups.
2. Exceptions
Information may be retained beyond 30 days when:
- the customer has purchased an ongoing backup, managed, hosting, or retention service;
- the service remains open or delivery has not been completed;
- the information is required for warranty, rework, dispute, fraud, or security investigation;
- a legal hold, subpoena, court order, regulation, insurer, or contractual duty requires retention; or
- deletion is not reasonably feasible from an immutable backup until the backup expires under its normal lifecycle.
3. Retention Schedule
| Category | Standard Retention |
|---|---|
| Temporary service-created file copies and recovery working data | Up to 30 days after service completion |
| Customer devices and physical media awaiting pickup | Up to 90 days after documented notice, subject to applicable law and service terms |
| Website leads, chats, and appointment records | Retained while operationally useful, then archived or deleted according to business and legal needs |
| Service tickets, work authorizations, approvals, and customer communications | Retained for business, warranty, dispute, security, and legal purposes |
| Invoices, receipts, and accounting records | Retained for applicable tax, accounting, and legal periods |
| SMS consent and opt-out records | Retained as evidence of consent, messaging history, and compliance |
| Security and administrative audit logs | Retained according to security, investigation, and operational needs |
| Managed backup data | Controlled by the applicable service agreement and backup lifecycle |
| Employee and applicant records | Retained according to employment, tax, insurance, and legal requirements |
4. Deletion Methods
Depending on the system and media, deletion may include logical deletion, cryptographic erasure, secure overwrite, account deletion, media sanitization, physical destruction, or expiration through an approved backup lifecycle. Archived records may remain recoverable for a limited time before permanent deletion.
5. Customer Requests
Customers may request early deletion of temporary service-created copies by contacting support@protek.team. ProTek may verify identity and authority before processing a request. Requests do not require deletion of records that ProTek must or may lawfully retain for security, accounting, legal, contractual, or dispute-resolution purposes.
6. Legal Holds
Deletion is suspended for information subject to a legal hold, investigation, dispute, subpoena, insurance claim, or other preservation obligation. The hold remains until released by authorized management or counsel.
7. System Design
Where supported, ProTek systems use archive or soft-delete functions before permanent deletion. Permanent deletion is restricted to authorized administrators, requires confirmation, and is recorded in an audit log.