Data retention and deletion policy of RETEX
Version 1.0 · Last updated: 2026-10-05 · ARSHIVE GROUP - FZCO, a Dubai free zone company, licence number 64407, IFZA Business Park, DDP, Premises no 64407-001, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Contact: support@retexapp.com.
This page says how long RETEX keeps each category of data and how data is deleted. It supports the storage-limitation principle in Article 5(1)(e) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and is summarised in the Privacy Policy and the Data Processing Agreement.
1. Who decides
- Customer data in a merchant's return flow (requests, photos, labels, messages, ratings). The merchant is the controller and we are its processor. The periods below are our defaults; where a setting is marked "per shop", the merchant can change it in RETEX, and we apply the merchant's setting. We delete earlier when the merchant instructs us to, and we also delete when Shopify tells us to (section 4).
- Merchant account data (shop domain, store and contact details, plan, acceptance of our terms). We are the controller of this data.
2. Retention periods
| Category | What it contains | Default retention | Deleted or anonymised by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open return or exchange request | Order reference, customer name and contact details, items, reason, amounts, status history, internal comments | While the request is open | Not deleted while open; moves to the next row when closed |
| Closed request (completed or cancelled) | As above, plus refund, store-credit or replacement-order references | 24 months after closing, per shop | Scheduled retention job: personal fields are removed, and reference, dates, amounts, currency and status are kept as non-personal records |
| Rejected request | As above, plus the reason for rejection | 24 months after the decision, per shop | Same job |
| Photos uploaded with a request | Images from the customer, with camera metadata removed on upload | With the request they belong to | Deleted with the request's personal data (above) and immediately on a customer erasure request |
| Shipping labels and return codes | Label files created by or uploaded to the app, tracking numbers, drop-off point | With the request they belong to | As photos |
| Unlinked inbound email | Messages received in a mailbox the merchant has connected that do not match any request, order reference or known customer | 30 days, per shop | Scheduled retention job |
| Linked email threads and attachments | Messages and attachments that belong to a request | With the request they belong to | As photos |
| Customer notes, ratings and flags | The merchant's own notes, 1–5 ratings and trusted/problem flag for a customer, used only within that shop | While the merchant keeps them | The merchant, customer erasure, or shop deletion |
| Privacy-request exports | The file we prepare when a customer asks for a copy of their data | With the record of that privacy request | Removed when the customer's data is erased, and with the shop's data |
| Application logs | Technical logs with shop and request identifiers; email addresses, tokens and credentials are removed from logs | 30 days | The hosting provider's log retention setting |
| Backups | Encrypted copies of the production database | Up to 35 days | Expire automatically; deleted data disappears from backups within that window and is not restored for other purposes |
| Integration credentials | The merchant's carrier or mailbox credentials, stored encrypted | Until the merchant removes them, or the app is uninstalled | Deleted immediately when removed, and with the shop's data after uninstall |
| Merchant account data | Shop domain, shop and contact details, plan, terms acceptance, installation dates | While the app is installed, and until the shop's data is deleted (section 4) | Shop deletion. Records that accounting law requires us to keep are kept for the period set by that law |
Why 24 months. A consumer can withdraw up to 12 months and 14 days after delivery where the seller did not give the required information (Directive 2011/83/EU, Article 10), and the legal guarantee for goods runs for two years from delivery (Directive (EU) 2019/771, Article 10). Keeping a closed request for 24 months lets a merchant answer a complaint or dispute about a return. Merchants who need a shorter or longer period can set it themselves; we recommend against indefinite retention.
3. What "deleted" and "anonymised" mean
- Deleted: the row, file or message is removed from the database or object storage. Backups then expire as shown above.
- Anonymised: names, email addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses, free-text notes, comments, message bodies, photos, attachments, ratings and profile data are removed or replaced. We keep the request reference, dates, amounts, currency and status, which no longer identify a person without the merchant's own order records, so that the merchant's accounts and statistics remain consistent.
4. Requests from Shopify, merchants and customers
| Event | What we do | When |
|---|---|---|
Customer data erasure (Shopify customers/redact webhook, or an instruction from the merchant) |
Anonymise that customer's requests and delete their photos, attachments, email content, notes and ratings | Within 30 days of the request |
Customer data access (Shopify customers/data_request webhook) |
Prepare an export of the data we hold about that customer and make it available to the merchant in RETEX | Within 30 days of the request |
| App uninstalled | Stop all processing for the shop. Delete all of the shop's data, including requests, settings, credentials, files and messages, about 48 hours later, when Shopify sends its shop/redact webhook. If the merchant reinstalls within that time, the pending deletion is cancelled and no data is lost. |
About 48 hours after uninstall |
| Merchant ends the agreement | Return or delete data as set out in the Data Processing Agreement | As that agreement states |
Shopify delays some customer-erasure notices (for example, where the customer has recent orders), so the date a notice reaches us can be later than the customer's request. The 30-day periods run from the date we receive the notice or instruction.
5. Exceptions
We keep data longer only where a law requires it, or where it is needed to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim, and only for as long as that need lasts. In those cases we restrict the data to that purpose.
6. Contact
Questions about retention, or a request to delete data sooner: support@retexapp.com. Customers of a merchant should contact that merchant first, because the merchant decides how its customers' data is handled.