Know more about Data Retention Policy and its Examples

What is Data Retention?

Data retention aka record retention refers to the methods of storing, archiving, and managing data. It also monitors various records from different periods of time. Moreover, there are various purposes and objectives for businesses to retain data. 

Firstly, to manage financial records with accuracy, adhere to local, state, and federal regulations, and comply with various industry norms. It also helps businesses easily access the data and analyze it for growth and development strategies. 

Data Retention also ensures that the business’s data is ready for compliance or for other functions. Hence, the retention periods may differ depending on the type of data, its actionable insights, or other factors.

What is a Data Retention Policy?

A Data Retention Policy indicates a business’s policy or agreement to protect the data for regulatory or compliance objectives. It also refers to the process of mitigating data that is no longer in use. Further, the policy signifies the way data or records require formatting and using various devices and systems to store the data. It also enables businesses to identify the usage period of the data using regulatory and governing body policies.

Why is Data Retention Policy Important?

Firstly, businesses must understand that the data retention policy helps primarily with regulatory compliances. However, there are other pivotal reasons excluding legal requirements. Hence, here are the  importance of implying data retention policies for the business:

• Accessibility for Data:

Data Retention Policy provides flexibility to businesses while accessing, storing, and managing data. Moreover, it mitigates the task of analyzing multiple sets of data to retrieve useful information. 

• Safety and Protection for the Data:

Businesses often deal with multiple sets and types of data while executing operations. Further, with the data retention policy, there is an increase in the safety and protection of the data. Moreover, businesses need to safeguard confidential and valuable data from cybercriminals.  Hence, with data retention policies in place, businesses can identify more valuable sets and put in measures to protect the same. As a result, businesses only need to safeguard the finite data sets that achieve actionable insights.

• Develop Trust with Customers:

Customers often provide their information to businesses in order to gain more insights into their products, services, and solutions. Therefore, businesses receive and utilise the same information to develop their operations. As a result, businesses must identify the data that is pivotal for creating customer engagement and trust. Hence, executing data retention policies help businesses utilise information and work on the feedback by the customers.

Key Questions to address while implementing Data Retention Policies

• What Regulations and Compliance must the business follow?

Firstly, businesses must understand the various requirements of their data and the industry they cater to. Moreover, the emphasis needs to be on the guidelines to safeguard confidential information. 

• What data and records require maintenance and storing?

Further, there may be multiple sets of data, that businesses collect, that require monitoring. Moreover, businesses must identify the data sets that are pivotal for their operations and objectives. It also depends on the nature and industry of the business. For instance, financial institutions maintain the data of financial statements and accounts. On the other hand, manufacturing companies would maintain the data of machines, assets, and their performances.

• Is there a requirement to digitize the data?

Experts believe that there is no requirement for businesses to digitize the data. Businesses must also comprehend their objectives and make a decision to maintain physical records. 

• How can businesses develop the business’s data retention policy?

Most importantly, businesses must organise and manage their data retention policy to safeguard important information. Moreover, it helps retrieve pivotal data and records to prevent financial repercussions. Hence, while expanding the business there may be a change in the type and size of data. Therefore, a robust data retention policy must be agile that align with various business activities.

How can businesses create their own Data Retention Policies?

Here are the steps businesses must follow to create a data retention policy:

• Firstly, businesses must identify their legal and compliance requirements. Moreover, businesses can create their policy using various governing and industrial regulations. For instance, there are regulations like GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and SOX in place for various businesses. 
• Businesses can also create various segments according to their operative requirements. Further, businesses must gather the data that helps them execute regular operations that deliver products, services, and solutions for customers.
• Moreover, businesses can then assign resources who would be responsible for implying the data retention policies. Therefore, businesses can integrate various departments like HR, Finance, Marketing, etc. to provide insights regarding the policies.
• Above all, once the data retention policies are implemented, there must be a process to regularly audit and monitor the adherence. Hence, executing an internal audit could provide insights on the policies and maintain the same.

The Top Data Retention Policy Examples that provide various businesses with insights

• Data Retention Policy Examples with Google:

Google is a giant organization that began its services as a search engine and now has evolved into various other solutions, products, and services. Moreover, the company collects data from its audiences in exchange for its services. Further, they have a Privacy Policy that describes the various ways it uses the data.

Google also allows its audiences to delete information. It also automatically deletes any information that may be redundant. Moreover, data like personal information, account activity, images & documents, etc are retained until deleted by the user.

Google’s data retention policy is one of the best examples that assure safety and security to its users. 

• Examples of Data Retention Policy with Wikipedia:

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that provides a plethora of information to its users. Further, the amount of information that the website provides depends on the management of data. Moreover, Wikipedia follows the guideline set by Wikimedia to regulate the information. The website also adheres to the guidelines that apply to non-public data the website collects. Further, users can easily access, edit, and delete the information on the page. Hence, Wikipedia uses data retention policies to monitor and manage information regarding the topics and safeguard the data collected from the users.

• Data Retention Policy Examples with Spotify:

Spotify is a popular music streaming that allows its users to access music, podcasts, etc. Moreover, the app contains over 381 million active users, which include more than 172 million subscribers. Further, their Privacy Policy describes how they process and secure personal information. The music streaming app also includes GDPR guidelines for its users. 

Moreover, their data retention policy states that the data is used to offer Spotify Services. It also utilises the data to maintain the performance of the app, resolve disputes and make decisions for features based on the data.