Data retention
Toden holds identity data on your behalf: documents, selfies, results and the records built from them. This page states how long each kind of data is kept, which periods you can set yourself, and how to remove a record. It is written for compliance and data protection leads, and for developers who need to know when a media URL stops returning the original file.
This page describes how the product behaves. Your contract and data processing agreement with Toden set out the legal terms. How long you must keep verification records depends on the rules that apply to your business.
Summary
Uploads before submission
Files are uploaded while a person moves through a verification, before anything is submitted. An upload that is never attached to a verification is deleted automatically.
The rule behind the table: the more sensitive the data and the easier it is to capture again, the shorter it is held. A selfie takes seconds to retake, so biometric captures are never held longer. A certificate of incorporation can take days to find, so it lives as long as the application it belongs to.
While a person is actively working through a session, the lifetime of the uploads their saved progress refers to is renewed under the same per-type limits. Once they stop, the clock runs out.
Session data
A verification session that is not finished keeps the person’s progress so that they can resume. By default a session lasts 24 hours for an individual and 7 days for a business application. You can set a session lifetime between 1 and 720 hours per workflow, in the workflow’s advanced session settings.
When a session expires, or you expire it early, its saved progress is erased. The session record itself remains, so your list still shows that an attempt was started and where it stopped.
Sandbox media
Media captured on a Sandbox test verification is kept for 3 days. After that the files are deleted and the verification’s media URLs return a placeholder image instead of an error, so your integration tests keep working without Toden holding test captures indefinitely. The verification record and its result stay. The same 3-day rule applies to photos used in sandbox face match checks.
Supporting documents
Supporting documents are extra files a workflow collects, such as an identity slip, that you may only need checked and not held. By default the files are kept as long as the verification. To shorten that:
Open the workflow
Go to Configuration → Workflows, open the workflow and select its supporting documents step.
When the period ends, the files are deleted. The check results stay on the verification, so nothing you branch on or report is lost, and the document’s media URL returns a placeholder. If a verification is sent back and the documents are carried forward, the original deletion date is kept: a resubmission does not restart the clock.
Address data
The console states both periods where they apply: beside the list of address upload runs, and on a resolved presence check whose daily evidence has been removed.
Logs
- API request logs, under Developers → Logs, are kept for 7 days. They hold request summaries and timings.
- Audit log entries have no automatic expiry and cannot be edited or deleted. See Audit logs.
Verifications held for insufficient credit
If a production verification cannot be charged because your balance is too low, Toden may hold it, with the person’s captures, so that it can run once you add credit. The hold is short, three days as standard. When it ends without payment the verification fails and the captures are deleted. The console shows held work and its deadline in Organisation → Billing.
Deleting records
You can delete a verification, an unfinished attempt, a spot check, a face match check or a customer record from the console or the API. Each has its own permission: verifications:delete, spot_checks:delete, business_checks:delete and identity:delete.
Deletion is soft:
- The record disappears from every list, detail page, export, analytics figure and API response in your organisation.
- Toden keeps it, marked as deleted, so that a compliance history cannot be rewritten without trace.
- A verification that is still processing cannot be deleted until it finishes.
- Deleting does not refund the verification.
- Deleting a customer record pauses its ongoing screening.
A deleted record cannot be restored from the console or the API. If something was deleted by mistake, contact Toden support, who can restore it. See Manage records for the API.
Two removals are permanent because the data would otherwise keep working against the person:
Data minimisation in what you receive
Retention covers what Toden stores. Separately, each workflow step has a Returned data setting that limits which fields and media links are sent to you in webhooks. Use it when you want a result without receiving, and therefore having to retain, the underlying personal data. See Workflows.