Our approach
The UK GDPR says personal data must not be kept in a form that identifies people for longer than it is needed. We set a period for each kind of data we hold, delete it when the period ends, and keep it longer only for a stated reason.
The Director owns this policy and the schedule below, and reviews them at least once a year.
Agency data: the agency decides
Each agency is the controller of its candidates', workers', clients' and staff's data in the Service, so the agency decides how long to keep it, taking account of its own legal duties. Agencies can correct and delete their own records. We keep agency data while the agency's account is active, unless the agency deletes it sooner.
Deleting a record removes it from the live Service straight away. A copy stays in our backups until those backups age out, as the schedule below shows.
When an agency leaves or is suspended
When an agency's contract ends, or its account is suspended, we keep its data for 90 days so that it can export it. We tell the agency to take its exports. After 90 days we delete the data from the live Service.
Copies then remain only in backups. The last nightly backup holding the data is deleted about two weeks later, and the last monthly backup holding it within 12 months. We use backups for nothing except restoring the Service.
Retention schedule
These are the periods we apply. Where a period runs from an event, it starts on the day of that event.
- Agency data in the Service (candidates, workers, clients, staff, documents, bookings, timesheets, pay and invoices): while the agency's account is active, as the agency decides; then 90 days after termination or suspension; then deleted from the live Service.
- An agency's audit trail, including entries made by Templace staff: kept with the agency's data and deleted with it.
- Nightly backups: the newest 14 are kept; each older one is deleted.
- Monthly backups (the backup taken on the first of each month): kept for 12 months, then deleted.
- Website enquiries: up to 24 months after our last contact with the enquirer, unless they become a customer.
- Agency customer contacts: while the agency is a customer, then six years after the contract ends, the period in which a contract claim can be brought under the Limitation Act 1980.
- Users' sign-in details (name, email address, role and password hash): while the user's account exists; deleted with the agency's data when the agency leaves.
- Billing records (invoices, payments and credit notes): six years from the end of the financial year they relate to, as HMRC's record-keeping rules require.
- Supplier records: six years from the end of the financial year of the last transaction.
- Records of rights requests and data protection complaints: three years after the request or complaint is closed.
- Personal data breach log: six years after the breach is closed.
Keeping data longer
We keep data beyond its period only where we must: to meet a legal obligation, to deal with a claim or a regulator's enquiry, or where an agency instructs us in writing. We keep only what that purpose needs, record why, and delete it when the reason ends.
How we delete
Deleting means removing data from the live database so that it cannot be found or brought back through the Service. Where a copy cannot be deleted straight away, as with backups, we keep it secure, use it for nothing else and let it age out on schedule.
If an agency asks us to restore its system from a backup, records it deleted after that backup was taken will come back. We tell the agency which period is affected so that it can delete them again.
Questions
Agencies can ask us about retention at terry@hilliernet.co.uk. Anyone else should ask the agency that holds their data, or ask us about the data we hold for ourselves.
Data retention · version 1.0 · approved 27/10/2026 · next review 27/10/2027. Templace is a trading name of TWH Holdings Limited, company number 10663539, Meadway, Mill Road, Writhlington, Radstock, BA3 5TY.