Account deletion and retention information
Processing policy: account-deletion-1. Prepared 27 October 2026.
Staging implementation. Final provider retention periods and legal record categories still require operator validation before production activation. Contribution submissions remain separately gated.
What happens after confirmation
Account access and public profile display are closed immediately. Your saved choice either keeps published guides as “Former community member” without a profile link, or withdraws them and their reader image access. This label is not a claim that every identifying detail in guide text or images has been anonymised. Support reviews personal information in retained contributions separately.
Unpublished drafts are removed from the review queue. Routine messages stop. Background processing cancels open checkout sessions, future subscription schedules and subscriptions. An in-flight invoice or provider failure requires operator review. Confirmation does not promise a refund or mean every copy has been erased.
Restricted records and review
The current workflow creates a retention review due within 30 days of confirmation. Final erasure of Auth identity, drafts, unnecessary media and provider records requires a documented operator review. It is not yet an automatic purge. Necessary licence provenance for retained publications, financial obligations and specific legal holds must be assessed separately; keeping a guide does not justify keeping all account data.
The proposed operating limits are 30 days for unnecessary active personal data and routine logs, 90 days for backup expiry, 12 months for minimal deletion evidence, and the period of content use plus at most 3 years after definitive withdrawal for necessary licence evidence. These are proposed operational limits, not statutory periods or verified provider settings. The operator must validate necessity, provider capabilities and accounting obligations before adopting them.
Before restoring a backup into service, the operator must reapply confirmed account closures and publication withdrawals from the deletion register. A restore must not reopen accounts or republish withdrawn guides.
Contact and later withdrawal
You may request status, withdrawal of retained contributions or review of personal information through operator support, including after account deletion. Support verifies ownership using proportionate information. Never send passwords, MFA secrets or recovery codes. Your statutory rights are unaffected.