Retention and destruction

Retention determines how long documents continue to exist. You set it per document type, and during a dispute you can impose a legal hold that blocks destruction.

Setting retention periods

1. Open Office administration → Retention.
2. Choose the document type, for example Client due diligence (Wwft) or Copy of identity document.
3. Set the period and save.

A period starts running from the moment the matter ends, not from the upload. If you do not close a matter, the period does not start either.

Legal hold

A legal hold prevents something from being permanently deleted. You can impose it at four levels: a document, a folder, a dataroom or an entire matter.

1. Choose Set legal hold.
2. Choose the level and the reason: Ongoing dispute, Request from a regulator, Instruction from the client or Other.
3. Confirm.

As long as the hold is active, nothing within that scope can be permanently deleted. Moving to the recycle bin remains possible; permanent destruction does not.

After the hold is lifted, destruction stays blocked for another seven days (after-effect). That way you prevent someone from seeing a dispute coming and wiping the documents on the same day.

Destruction

Destruction happens in two steps:

1. An administrator requests destruction.
2. A second administrator approves.

If there is no second administrator, a cooling-off period of 72 hours applies before the destruction goes ahead. That way one person is never able to make evidence disappear on their own.

The destruction certificate

After destruction you receive a certificate. It states:

• which dataroom and which request it concerned, and who requested and approved it;
• the method: crypto-shredding — the keys of the files have been destroyed, which has made the encrypted files unreadable;
• the numbers: documents, versions, files, bytes and key versions;
• the moments: started, removed from the application, unreadable in the live system and irreversible in all backups.

That last moment is the most important one: only once the encrypted copies have also disappeared from the backups is the destruction irreversible. Keep the certificate with your matter.

Destruction is final

There is no recycle bin any more and no recovery. Check the scope — document, folder, dataroom or matter — before you make the request. If you are unsure, set a legal hold first and work it out.

What you must be able to explain

In an audit the following is usually asked:

Question	Evidence
How long do you retain this?	The period set per document type
Why was this destroyed?	The destruction certificate with reason and approval
Could anyone still restore it?	The timeline in the certificate, up to and including “irreversible in all backups”
Did anyone stop it?	The legal hold with level, reason and dates