Data Retention Policy

1. Principle

We keep personal data only as long as we need it for the purpose it was collected, or as long as the law requires — whichever is longer. This page sets out the periods that apply to each type of record. It sits alongside the Privacy Policy, which explains what we collect and why.

2. Retention periods

Data	Kept for	Why
Account data (name, email, company details)	Life of the subscription, then deleted within 30 days of cancellation	Needed to provide the service
Financial & tax records — invoices, receipts, expenses, quotes, and schedule data with financial impact	At least 6 years from the end of the relevant tax year	Required by HMRC under s.12B Taxes Management Act 1970
Job data — visit notes, photos, operational records	3 years from last activity	Useful history for recurring work; not a tax record
Support conversations	2 years from last interaction	Continuity if an issue recurs
Operational backups	30-day rolling cycle	Recovery from failure or accidental deletion
Server logs	90 days	Security and fault diagnosis
Anonymised analytics	May be kept indefinitely	No longer personal data once anonymised

3. Deleting your account

You can request deletion at any time from inside the app or by emailing support@thecanopyapp.com. When you do, your account data and job data are removed within 30 days.

4. The tax-records exception

Financial and tax records cannot be deleted on request until the six-year HMRC period has passed. This is a legal obligation and it overrides the right to erasure, as permitted by UK GDPR Article 17(3)(b). Those records are retained for that purpose alone.

In practice, an invoice raised in the 2026/27 tax year is retained until at least April 2033, even if you close your account before then. Everything outside that category is deleted on the schedule above.

5. Backups

Deleted data may persist in operational backups for up to 30 days after deletion, after which those backups are cycled out. Backups are not used to restore individual records a user has asked us to delete.

6. Get your data out first

You own your records. Before deleting anything, you can export your clients, visits, invoices and financial data to CSV from inside the app. We recommend doing that first, because deletion is not reversible.

7. Contact

Questions about retention, or to make a request: support@thecanopyapp.com. We respond within 30 days.