Data retention policy

This policy sets out how long Honest Glass Group Limited, trading as Vinealto, keeps personal data, and what happens to it at the end of that time. It sits beside our privacy policy.

Where we say a "scrambled form", we mean a one way code made from the data. It lets us recognise the same data if it comes back, but it cannot be turned back into the original.

How long we keep it

What	How long	What happens then
Your account and everything on it: progress, answers, awards, certificate numbers, exam records, bookings	Until you delete your account	Deleted at once when you delete the account
Public register entry	Until you opt out or delete your account	Removed at once
Record of each award you hold: certificate number, award, date and the name on the certificate	Kept after you delete your account	Kept so that anyone you have shown a certificate to can still check it is genuine
Accounts never confirmed by the emailed link	7 days	Deleted automatically
Purchase records and checkout confirmations, including your confirmation that you wanted access straight away and gave up the 14 day right to cancel	6 years from the purchase, even if you delete your account	On account deletion, detached from the account and the email address replaced by a scrambled form; deleted after 6 years
Discount codes used	6 years	Kept only with a scrambled form of the email address, so a code cannot be used again by joining again
Email addresses given on a form and never confirmed	30 days	Deleted
Newsletter consent	Until you withdraw it	We stop sending at once. The record of your consent and its withdrawal is kept for 6 years after withdrawal, then deleted
Business registrations never confirmed	30 days	Deleted
Confirmed business registrations with no business account	2 years from our last contact	Deleted
Vinealto for Business menu records (when business sales open): the photographs of the menus and wine list a restaurant sends us, each version we make, our checks, and the restaurant's confirmation tick	21 years after the subscription ends	Deleted. Kept this long because a claim about a child's allergy can be brought many years later
Feedback notes	The note itself is kept	The reply email address is removed after 2 years. The scrambled network address is removed after 12 months. If you delete your account, your name and email address are removed from your notes at once
At the Table photographs	Never kept	Read and discarded
At the Table read log: the time, the number of photographs, and a scrambled network address or your account number	12 months	Deleted
Wine and dish names At the Table did not recognise	Kept	Held with nothing that identifies anyone
Email sending log	2 years, or until you delete your account if sooner	The recipient address is replaced
Record of deleted accounts	6 years	Deleted. Where an account was removed because it was never confirmed, the email domain on the record (for example the part after the @) is deleted after 12 months
Messages to elise@vinealto.com	2 years after the last message in the conversation	Deleted
Restaurant contact details held for the Guide (the business contact details a restaurant publishes)	While the restaurant is in the Guide, or until it asks us to stop contacting it	Deleted, or marked so that we do not contact it again

Notes

• Deleting your account. You can delete your account at any time on the website. The table shows what is deleted at once and the few records we keep afterwards.
• Why we keep purchase records for 6 years. If a payment is disputed, these records are our evidence of what you bought and what you agreed at checkout. Six years is the time within which a claim about a contract can be brought. They are detached from your account, so they are no longer linked to you by name or email.
• Accounts not used. We do not delete accounts for inactivity at present. In future, if an account has not been signed in to for 3 years, we will email you before we delete anything.
• Payments. Stripe, Apple and Google keep their own payment records under their own policies. Deleting your Vinealto account does not delete them.
• Where the law requires longer. If the law requires us to keep something for longer, or we need it to deal with a legal claim, we keep it for that time.