Data Retention & Your Rights
Last updated: 20 June 2026
This statement explains, category by category, how long we keep your data and how you can have it deleted. It supplements our Privacy Policy.
1. Retention by category
| Data | Retention | How it is erased |
|---|---|---|
| Account data (name, email, target band, exam date, country) | While your account is active, then up to 90 days after deletion for recovery. | Deleting your account. |
| Practice & attempt history (answers, scores, time-on-task, bookmarks) | While your account is active, to power your reports and Smart Review Queue. | Cascades when your account is deleted. |
| Writing essays (the text you submit for grading) | Kept as your study history so feedback and progress remain available. Not used to train any third-party model. | Erased when you delete your account; per-essay self-service deletion is being rolled out (see §3). |
| Speaking recordings | Audio is currently held only in your browser for the duration of a session and is not uploaded to our servers. Only non-audio metadata (length, question reference) may be stored. | Browser audio clears on reload/exit; stored metadata is deletable by you and cascades on account deletion. |
| Product analytics (funnel & usage events) | Aggregated usage events with no essay/recording content and no personal identifiers beyond an analytics id. Honour Do-Not-Track and your opt-out. | Opt out anytime; events carry no content to erase. |
| Payment records (invoices, tax data) | Retained for 7 years to meet tax-compliance obligations. | Held by us and Stripe for the statutory period. |
2. What we never send to analytics or third parties
Your essay text, Speaking audio or transcripts, individual answer strings, and your email or name are never included in analytics events. Analytics records only low-detail signals such as “a Reading practice finished” with a numeric score — never the content itself.
3. Your right to erasure
You can request deletion of your personal data at any time:
- Delete your account — this removes your profile and cascades to your practice history, Writing essays, and Speaking metadata.
- Email a request to privacy@abcdenglish.net and we will action it within 30 days. We may retain payment records where the law requires it.
- Opt out of analytics — your browser’s Do-Not-Track setting is respected, and analytics carries no content to erase.
Per-item self-service deletion (removing a single essay or recording without deleting your whole account) is being rolled out. Until it is live everywhere, email us and we will remove specific items for you.
Contact. Retention and erasure questions go to privacy@abcdenglish.net.