Data Retention Policy

This Data Retention Policy explains how Simple Software Development LLC, as owner and operator of Edminhub, approaches the retention, storage, export, deletion, and disposal of school data and personal information processed through the Edminhub platform.

The purpose of this policy is to support responsible information management, reduce unnecessary data retention, preserve operational records where required, and protect Simple Software Development LLC, Edminhub, its directors, officers, members, employees, contractors, and affiliates against avoidable legal, operational, and security risk.

This policy should be read together with the Edminhub SaaS Subscription Agreement, Data Processing Agreement, Security and Privacy Statement, Security Overview, Child Data Protection Statement, and Incident Response Procedure, where applicable.

This policy applies to data processed, stored, backed up, logged, generated, uploaded, or otherwise handled through Edminhub, including production data, backup data, support records, audit logs, system logs, billing records, security records, and account administration information.

This policy applies to Simple Software Development LLC personnel, authorised contractors, support providers, and any approved service providers who may assist in providing, supporting, securing, maintaining, or improving Edminhub.

This policy does not replace the school's own legal, statutory, educational, accounting, safeguarding, employment, or recordkeeping obligations. Each school remains responsible for deciding what records it must retain, for how long, and for what lawful purpose.

The school retains ownership of Customer Data entered into Edminhub by the school or its authorised users. Simple Software Development LLC does not claim ownership of school records, learner records, academic records, attendance records, disciplinary records, parent or guardian information, teacher information, or uploaded school content.

Simple Software Development LLC processes and retains Customer Data only as reasonably necessary to provide, support, secure, maintain, administer, improve, bill for, or protect the Edminhub service, unless otherwise agreed in writing or required by law.

The school remains responsible for ensuring that information entered into Edminhub is accurate, lawful, appropriate, and retained in line with the school's own statutory and institutional obligations.

Unless a different period is agreed in writing, required by law, or technically required for service delivery, Simple Software Development LLC applies the following general retention approach:

Backups are performed daily and retained for a period of 7 days.

Point-in-time backups may be available where a school makes a special arrangement with Edminhub / Simple Software Development LLC.

Backups are maintained for disaster recovery, operational resilience, and restoration of service where technically possible. Backups are not intended to serve as a permanent archive, statutory recordkeeping system, or substitute for the school's own records management duties.

Restoration from backup may not always be possible for isolated, user-caused, school-caused, or historical data issues, especially where data has already been changed, overwritten, deleted, or affected by the ordinary backup retention cycle.

Simple Software Development LLC does not guarantee that every item of lost, deleted, corrupted, or changed data can be restored. Any restoration request will be handled on a reasonable efforts basis, subject to technical feasibility, available backups, commercial reasonableness, security considerations, and any applicable service agreement.

Point-in-time backup arrangements are not included by default unless expressly agreed in writing. Where a school requires point-in-time recovery, extended backup retention, special archiving, or enhanced disaster recovery arrangements, this must be agreed separately with Simple Software Development LLC.

Any special arrangement may specify additional fees, recovery limits, retention periods, restore processes, recovery time objectives, recovery point objectives, technical limitations, and responsibilities of the school.

A school may request export of available Customer Data, subject to technical feasibility, user permissions, service plan limitations, security checks, and the terms of the applicable agreement.

Simple Software Development LLC may require reasonable verification before providing exports to ensure that the request is authorised by the school. Simple Software Development LLC is not responsible for deciding internal disputes within a school about who is entitled to request or receive exported data.

Exports may be provided in a commercially reasonable format determined by Simple Software Development LLC, unless a specific format is agreed in writing. Custom exports, complex migrations, data transformation, historical reconstruction, or extraction from backups may attract additional fees.

Where technically and legally possible, schools may request deletion of Customer Data in line with the applicable agreement, service functionality, and this policy.

Simple Software Development LLC may refuse, delay, limit, or condition deletion where retention is reasonably required for legal obligations, dispute resolution, billing, audit, security, backup integrity, fraud prevention, enforcement of agreements, or legitimate business protection.

Deletion from active systems does not necessarily mean immediate deletion from backups, logs, support records, billing records, or security records. Deleted data may remain in backups until the ordinary backup expiry or overwrite process has completed.

Simple Software Development LLC is not responsible for deleting copies of data exported, downloaded, printed, shared, emailed, or otherwise removed from Edminhub by the school or its users.

Upon termination or expiry of the school's subscription, the school may request export of available Customer Data within a reasonable period and subject to the applicable agreement.

After termination, Simple Software Development LLC may retain Customer Data for a limited period to allow for account closure, billing, dispute handling, reactivation, backup expiry, legal compliance, security review, or operational requirements.

After any applicable post-termination period, Simple Software Development LLC may delete, anonymise, overwrite, or otherwise dispose of Customer Data in accordance with its internal practices, unless a longer period is required by law, agreed in writing, or reasonably necessary to protect Simple Software Development LLC's rights or legitimate interests.

Failure by the school to request export before deletion may result in permanent loss of access to Customer Data. Simple Software Development LLC is not responsible for preserving data indefinitely after termination unless expressly agreed in writing.

Edminhub may provide free trials, pilots, demonstrations, test accounts, or sandbox environments. These environments are not intended for long-term storage of official school records unless expressly agreed in writing.

Data entered into trial or demonstration environments may be deleted after the trial or demonstration period ends, where the school does not convert to a paid subscription, or where Simple Software Development LLC considers deletion necessary for security, operational, or administrative reasons.

Schools should avoid entering unnecessary sensitive learner information into trial or demonstration environments unless the trial has been formally authorised and appropriate contractual protections are in place.

Edminhub may retain logs and audit records to support security monitoring, accountability, troubleshooting, compliance, dispute handling, and investigation of suspected misuse or unauthorised access.

These records may include login events, administrative actions, permission changes, record changes, IP-related information, system errors, support actions, and security alerts.

Logs and audit records may be retained after the deletion of active school data where necessary for security, legal, operational, audit, billing, or dispute purposes. Access to such records is restricted to authorised personnel or service providers with a legitimate need to access them.

Simple Software Development LLC may suspend deletion or extend retention of data where it reasonably believes that data may be needed for legal proceedings, regulatory enquiries, contractual disputes, debt recovery, incident investigation, fraud prevention, enforcement of agreements, or protection of its legal rights and legitimate business interests.

Where a legal hold applies, data may be retained until the relevant matter is resolved, even if the school has requested deletion or the usual retention period has expired.

Learner data requires special care. Simple Software Development LLC will process learner data only as reasonably necessary to provide, support, secure, maintain, improve, or protect Edminhub, or as otherwise agreed in writing or required by law.

The school remains responsible for determining how long learner data must be retained for educational, legal, safeguarding, academic, statutory, or institutional purposes. Simple Software Development LLC is not responsible for deciding whether learner records should be retained, amended, disclosed, restricted, or deleted in response to school-level requests, parent requests, guardian requests, learner requests, or internal school disputes.

Simple Software Development LLC may use reputable third-party service providers to host, operate, secure, monitor, back up, support, maintain, or improve Edminhub. These providers may retain limited data where necessary to provide their services, subject to their own technical systems, retention practices, contractual terms, and legal obligations.

Simple Software Development LLC will use reasonable efforts to ensure that third-party providers process data only as necessary for the services they provide and do not use Customer Data for unrelated purposes. However, Simple Software Development LLC is not responsible for third-party systems, services, exports, integrations, or tools separately selected, connected, configured, or used by the school outside the Edminhub platform.

Depending on the hosting environment and service providers used, Customer Data may be stored, backed up, processed, or retained outside the country where the school is located.

The school is responsible for determining whether its use of Edminhub, including any cross-border storage or processing, is permitted under laws applicable to the school. Simple Software Development LLC will apply reasonable safeguards to protect Customer Data processed through its service environment.

Where data is no longer required and no legal, contractual, security, operational, billing, backup, audit, or legitimate business reason exists to retain it, Simple Software Development LLC may delete, anonymise, overwrite, aggregate, or otherwise dispose of data in a commercially reasonable manner.

Anonymised or aggregated information that no longer reasonably identifies a school, learner, parent, guardian, teacher, staff member, or user may be retained for analytics, service improvement, product development, security, reporting, or business purposes.

Simple Software Development LLC will not attempt to re-identify anonymised data except where necessary for security, fraud prevention, legal compliance, or system integrity purposes.

Retention periods in this policy are general policy positions and may be extended, shortened, or varied where reasonably necessary due to:

• legal or regulatory obligations;
• court orders, subpoenas, regulatory requests, or law enforcement requests;
• contractual commitments;
• billing disputes or unpaid fees;
• technical limitations or backup cycles;
• security incidents or investigations;
• fraud prevention or misuse investigations;
• system migration, maintenance, or restoration activities;
• customer-requested special arrangements;
• protection of Simple Software Development LLC's legal rights, directors, officers, employees, contractors, affiliates, or legitimate business interests.

Simple Software Development LLC will use reasonable efforts to apply this policy in a commercially reasonable and operationally practical manner. However, no retention, backup, deletion, export, or restoration process can be guaranteed to be error-free, immediate, complete, or suitable for every legal or school-specific requirement.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Simple Software Development LLC, its directors, officers, members, employees, agents, contractors, and affiliates shall not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, punitive, exemplary, or consequential loss arising from data retention, deletion, loss, corruption, failed restoration, delayed export, unauthorised school use, school configuration, school user conduct, or the school's failure to maintain its own records.

Nothing in this policy expands Simple Software Development LLC's liability beyond the limits set out in the applicable SaaS Subscription Agreement, Data Processing Agreement, or other written contract with the school.

This policy is intended to support responsible data retention and disposal practices. It does not constitute legal advice to schools, parents, guardians, learners, staff, or any other person.

Unless specifically stated in writing, Edminhub should not be interpreted as certified under ISO/IEC 27001, ISO 9001, SOC 2, Cyber Essentials, GDPR, POPIA, COPPA, or any other formal certification, privacy framework, or regulatory approval scheme.

The school remains responsible for determining whether Edminhub and this policy meet the school's own legal, regulatory, educational, operational, and recordkeeping requirements.

Simple Software Development LLC may update this Data Retention Policy from time to time to reflect changes in the Edminhub platform, legal requirements, service providers, technical architecture, backup arrangements, operational practices, or security improvements.

Where material changes are made, Simple Software Development LLC may notify schools through appropriate channels, such as email, platform notice, agreement updates, or updated documentation. Continued use of Edminhub after the effective date of an updated policy may be treated as acceptance of the updated policy, subject to the applicable agreement with the school.

Questions about Edminhub data retention, data export, deletion, backups, or privacy may be directed to: