World Text Data Retention Policy

Updated 9th January 2025

1. Purpose

World-Text, a trading name of Nevis Systems Ltd, retains personal, operational and service data only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.

This includes data required for the provision of telecommunications services, billing, customer support, security, fraud prevention, legal and regulatory compliance, and the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

Unless a longer retention period is required by law, regulation, contract, an active dispute, investigation or other legitimate requirement, the standard retention periods set out below apply.

2. Standard Retention Schedule

Data category	Typical data	Standard retention period	Reason
SMS message content	Text submitted for transmission and received SMS content	30 days maximum	Short-term delivery investigation, troubleshooting and customer support. Message content may be deleted earlier where technically practicable and no longer required.
SMS CDR / message metadata	Source and destination numbers, timestamps, message ID, route, delivery status, network response or error codes, message segments and charge information	24 months	Billing reconciliation, customer enquiries, delivery investigations, fraud detection and commercial disputes.
SMPP/API transactional logs	Bind and session activity, API requests, response codes, IP addresses, timestamps and technical diagnostic information	6 months	Technical troubleshooting, service monitoring, abuse prevention and security investigation. Where logs contain SMS message content, that content should follow the shorter SMS content retention period wherever technically practicable.
Security and audit logs	Authentication events, login attempts, IP addresses, administrative activity, firewall events and system security records	12 months	Security monitoring, incident investigation, fraud prevention and audit.
Billing and accounting records	Invoices, credit notes, payments, purchases, billing summaries, contracts and supporting financial records	6 years or longer where legally required	Tax, accounting, audit and statutory record-keeping obligations.
Customer account information	Company details, contact names, email addresses, telephone numbers, service configuration and account history	Duration of account plus 24 months	Service provision, account administration, reactivation enquiries, disputes and legitimate business records. Information forming part of financial or contractual records may be retained for the applicable longer statutory period.
Customer support records	Support tickets, emails, technical correspondence and investigation records	24 months after closure	Customer service history, recurring fault investigation and dispute resolution. Records relevant to an active dispute, security incident or legal matter may be retained for longer.
Contracts and legal correspondence	Service agreements, amendments, termination notices, legal claims and formal correspondence	6 years after termination or conclusion	Contractual record keeping and the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
Compliance and KYC records	Identity and company verification, compliance reviews, abuse investigations and regulatory correspondence	5 years after the relationship ends, unless another period is required by applicable law	Regulatory compliance, fraud prevention and evidence of due diligence.

3. Exceptions

The standard retention periods may be extended where information is reasonably required:

• by applicable law or regulation;
• by a telecommunications network, carrier or service provider under a contractual or regulatory obligation;
• in connection with an outstanding invoice, billing query or customer dispute;
• for the investigation of fraud, abuse or a security incident;
• in response to a lawful request from a court, law-enforcement agency or regulatory authority; or
• for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

Where an exception applies, World-Text will retain only the information reasonably required for that purpose and for no longer than necessary.

4. Deletion and Anonymisation

At the end of the applicable retention period, data will be securely deleted or irreversibly anonymised where reasonably practicable.

Data contained within system backups may remain until the relevant backup expires under the normal backup rotation process. Such data will not normally be restored or processed except where required for disaster recovery, security, legal or regulatory purposes.

Aggregated or irreversibly anonymised statistical information may be retained indefinitely where it can no longer be used to identify an individual.

5. Customer and End-User Data

Where World-Text processes personal data on behalf of a customer, retention may also be affected by the customer’s instructions, the applicable Data Processing Agreement, or obligations imposed by telecommunications networks and service providers involved in delivering the service.

Where a customer’s lawful retention instructions require a shorter period than the standard periods in this policy, World-Text will apply those instructions where technically and operationally practicable and where they do not conflict with legal, regulatory or contractual obligations.

6. Legal and Regulatory Holds

Where data is subject to an active legal claim, regulatory enquiry, law-enforcement request, security investigation or other formal hold, deletion may be suspended until the relevant matter has been concluded.

Once the hold no longer applies, the data will return to the normal retention and deletion process.

7. Review

This policy will be reviewed periodically and whenever there is a material change to World-Text’s services, systems, legal obligations, regulatory requirements or data-processing activities.

Retention periods may be amended where necessary to reflect changes in operational requirements, applicable law or industry practice.

8. Contact

Questions concerning this Data Retention Policy may be directed to World-Text through the contact details published on the World-Text website.