Retention, export and erasure

For administrators, security and compliance 4 min read

How long data is kept, legal hold, exporting your data, and erasing a person's personal data.

Your workspace's data is yours. You decide how long it's kept, you can export it, and you can erase a person's personal data when the law requires it.

Retention

Set Data retention (days) in Settings. A daily sweep deletes operational records older than the window. The audit log is never purged. Ask ELOS conversations follow their own retention setting.

Legal hold

A legal hold suspends the retention sweep, so nothing is deleted while it's on. Administrators set it through the ELOS API.

Export

• Your workspace: administrators download the whole workspace as one JSON file in Settings → Data & privacy (or through the ELOS API): settings, people, services, knowledge and docs, knowledge transfers, access requests, connected tools and the audit log. You may be asked to sign in again first.
• Your conversations: anyone can download their own Ask ELOS conversations from Ask ELOS › Conversations with Download my conversations (JSON). It never includes anyone else's.

Erasure

People's personal data is encrypted with a key per person. To erase someone, an administrator erases their key through the ELOS API: their personal data becomes permanently unreadable, and the record that remains is de-identified. The erasure itself is recorded in the audit log.

Delete your workspace

In Settings → Data & privacy, Delete the workspace schedules the deletion of the whole workspace. Type the workspace's name to confirm; you may be asked to sign in again first.

• For 7 days only administrators can sign in. Everyone else, service accounts and directory sync are refused, and people see a page that says why.
• Any administrator can cancel during those 7 days. Every administrator is told when it's scheduled and when it's cancelled.
• After 7 days the workspace and everything in it, including its files, are deleted, and administrators are told by email.