Data Retention & Deletion Policy

We keep personal data for as long as it is needed for the purpose it was collected for, and then we delete it. For the conversations and contacts inside your workspace, "needed" is a decision you make, not us: you are the controller, and the data stays as long as your account is active and you choose to keep it.

This policy sets out the periods we apply, what deletion actually means technically, and the narrow set of records we are required to hold on to. It forms part of our Data Processing Agreement and applies to the Service operated by Nebkern Technology.

• Conversations, contacts, notes, tags, custom fields, deals and call records — kept until you delete them or close the account. We do not age them out or archive them behind your back.
• Message attachments and voice notes — kept alongside the conversation they belong to, on the same basis.
• Account and team member records — kept while the workspace exists. Removing a member revokes their access immediately; their name remains on the messages and notes they authored, because rewriting conversation history would be worse than keeping it.
• Session and device records — kept while the session is valid, and for a short period afterwards for security investigation. You can revoke any session yourself from Profile settings.
• Application and access logs — retained for a limited period, typically no more than 90 days, then discarded.
• Channel access tokens — held encrypted for as long as the channel is connected, and destroyed when you disconnect it.

Deleting a contact in the app deletes their record and associated conversation data from the live database. It does not reach into backups — see the backup section below.

To close an account and have its data deleted, email contact@instant.nebkern.com from the address that owns the workspace, or ask through in-app support. We will verify that the request comes from someone entitled to make it before acting on it — that check protects you from someone else deleting your business’s records.

• We acknowledge the request and confirm what will be deleted.
• A 30-day grace period follows, during which the account can be restored if the request was a mistake or a departing employee acted without authority. Say the word and we will skip it.
• After the grace period, workspace data is deleted from live systems within 30 days.
• Backups containing it expire on their own rotation and are not selectively edited — see below.

Export your data before you ask us to close the account. Contacts, conversations and reports can be exported from the app while it is open. Once deletion completes we cannot recover it for you, and neither can our providers.

• When a subscription lapses, data is retained rather than deleted — people come back, and deleting a paying customer’s history over a failed card would be indefensible.
• We may restrict access to an unpaid workspace while retaining its contents.
• Where an account has been inactive and unpaid for an extended period, we may delete it after giving notice to the registered email address and a reasonable opportunity to export or reactivate.
• Accounts that never completed sign-up, and workspaces with no data, may be removed without notice.

Our database provider takes managed backups so that a failure or a mistake does not destroy your business. Those backups are point-in-time snapshots of whole databases, and they cannot be edited to surgically remove one record — trying to would compromise their integrity as a recovery mechanism.

• Deleted data may persist in backups until they expire on their normal rotation, typically within 30 days.
• Backups are encrypted, access to them is restricted, and they are used only to restore the Service.
• If a backup is ever restored, we re-apply outstanding deletions afterwards so that deleted data does not quietly return.

A few categories survive account closure because the law or a legitimate interest requires it. Each is limited to what is necessary and no more.

• Invoices, payment records and tax documents — retained for the period our tax and accounting law requires, commonly up to eight years. These identify the business and the transaction, not your customers’ conversations.
• Records needed to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim, for as long as that claim is live or possible.
• Minimal abuse and fraud records — for example that a particular email address or number was terminated for a policy breach — kept so a banned account cannot simply be reopened. Retained no longer than necessary for that purpose.
• Aggregated or de-identified usage statistics, which no longer identify anyone and are not restored to an identifiable state.

Deleting your Instant workspace does not delete copies held elsewhere, and we cannot make it:

• Meta retains message data on the WhatsApp Business Platform, Instagram and Messenger under its own terms and retention schedule. Requests about that go to Meta.
• Our payment processor retains transaction records under its own regulatory obligations.
• Anything you exported, or that your webhooks and API integrations delivered to your own systems, is under your control and yours to delete.
• Your contacts’ own copies of the messages remain on their phones, as they would with any messaging app.

If one of your contacts asks to be erased, that request is yours to answer — you are the controller and you know whether another basis for keeping the record applies. The app lets you find, export and delete any contact and their conversation history directly.

If someone contacts us directly about data we hold for one of our customers, we will not act on it unilaterally. We will point them to the business concerned and let that business know. Where you need help fulfilling a request that the product does not cover, email contact@instant.nebkern.com and we will assist.