DP012Retention and disposal of program records

The period for which the program keeps what it produced rather than what it observed: the alert, the case file, the note, the export, the assessment. Distinct from the retention of the business records the program reads, which the organization sets for its own reasons and the program does not control.

Pillar: DP | Data and asset protection
Sources cited: 6
Added: 30 AUGUST 2026
Updated: 20 SEPTEMBER 2026

Control	Jurisdiction	Source	What it establishes	Prerequisite or recommendation
DP012/NOMandatory	Norway	Forskrift om arbeidsgivers innsyn i e-postkasse og annet elektronisk lagret materialeArbeids- og inkluderingsdepartementet · read 29 Aug 2026	When an employer may look into a work mailbox or a worker’s personal areas on its equipment, that monitoring of internet use is outside what it may do at all, and that the regulation cannot be contracted around.	What is opened and proves not to be necessary or relevant to the purpose is closed at once, and any copy of it deleted.
DP012/PLMandatory	Poland	Kodeks pracy, article 22(2)Sejm of the Republic of Poland · read 20 Sep 2026	That image recording at work is open for four purposes only, one of them keeping secret information whose disclosure could harm the employer, that its purposes, scope and manner are fixed in the collective agreement, the work regulations or an announcement, that it is notified two weeks before it starts and handed to each worker before they are admitted to work, and that recordings are kept three months.	Image recordings are processed only for the purposes for which they were collected and kept no longer than three months from the day of recording. After that period those containing personal data are destroyed, unless separate provisions say otherwise.
DP012/GBMandatory	United Kingdom	Data Protection Act 2018, section 10 and Schedule 1Parliament of the United Kingdom · read 30 Aug 2026	The condition on which an employer may process a closed category at all, and the document that condition requires to exist before the processing starts.	The appropriate policy document has to explain the policies on retention and erasure of the data processed under the condition, and to give an indication of how long they are likely to be kept. An indication is what is asked for, not a period.
Recommended	Austriawhere written	Österreichisches Informationssicherheitshandbuch 4.4.0Bundeskanzleramt und A-SIT · read 29 Aug 2026	That logging is only effective as a security measure once someone independent reads it, that where nobody independent can, the administrators’ own activity is what stops being checkable, and that the evaluation goes before the data protection officer either way.	Log files hold personal data in many cases, so they may be used only for purposes compatible with the one they were collected for. Where that restriction bites, the handbook says it is resolved by removing the personal data or by anonymizing them, and states that pseudonymizing them is not enough.
Recommended	Norwaywhere written	NSMs grunnprinsipper for IKT-sikkerhet 2.1Nasjonal sikkerhetsmyndighet · read 29 Aug 2026	A set of principles for securing information systems, with the monitoring ones carrying what the collected data may be used for, what employees are to be told about it, and the requirement to verify that the collection is working.	The security relevant data are to be used only to safeguard the security of the systems, and kept long enough that unwanted activity can be discovered and mapped after the fact. What weighs on the period is that the data may later be wanted for an investigation, for assessing damage, and for trend analysis, held against the point that they can hold confidential information about the individual employee.
Recommended	United Kingdomwhere written	Employment practices and data protection: monitoring workersInformation Commissioner's Office · read 30 Aug 2026	What the British regulator expects of an employer that watches its workers, told apart as what an employer must do and what it should, and the conditions it sets on watching them without telling them.	What monitoring produces must not be kept longer than is necessary for the purpose. The period should rest on business need and be reviewed regularly, and it should not be kept in case a purpose is found for it later. A retention schedule must exist and what is collected must be deleted in line with it.