https://unicorniq.ai/assets/retention-export-erasure-CDxNt5Dq.js

1const e=`---
2title: How long Vera keeps things and how to get them out or erased
3section: Keeping, exporting, deleting
4order: 50
5summary: What Vera stores at each layer and for how long, where original files live, how to export what Vera knows, what deleting a document actually deletes, legal holds as the documented exception, duplicate uploads, and what happens when a workspace is closed.
6updated: 2026-09-16
7---
8
9> **The short version.** Vera keeps the derived text, extracted statements and search indexes of your documents in your workspace's database area; original files live in storage you nominate when Archive is on, and are not kept at all when it is off. The DPA sets the retention periods (work product 24 months from last activity, transient processing files 90 days, security logs 24 months, telemetry 13 months, backups on a rolling 90-day basis). Admins can export everything Vera knows for their scope; members can export their own memory. Deleting a document removes what was derived from it, store by store, and reports what it could not confirm. A legal hold is the deliberate exception. Vera does not train AI models on any of this.
10
11## What Vera stores, layer by layer
12
13Think of a document as passing through layers, each kept differently:
14
15- **The original file.** Lives in your own storage — the connected system it was imported from, or the destination you nominated for direct uploads. Imported files are referenced, not copied: Vera stores the provider's own id and fetches on demand. With the workspace's **Archive** setting off, a directly uploaded file is read, processed and deleted; nothing is retained, and reprocessing later means uploading again. Archive cannot be turned on without a consented destination.
16- **Extracted plain text.** Kept nowhere as a whole. It exists in memory during processing.
17- **Passages (chunks) and their search vectors.** Stored in your workspace's database area so answers can quote your sources. Vera's chunk-retention default is *full fidelity*: passage text is not thinned out, because the measured alternatives lost too much answer quality.
18- **Extracted statements and their evidence spans.** Stored in the workspace's database area, with the verbatim span each statement rests on.
19- **Generated outputs and learning media.** Documents Vera drafts, decks, narrated lessons and similar are stored in cloud storage under Vera's account, encrypted at rest, and served after an authorisation check.
20- **Chats, learning records, memory.** Stored in the workspace. Temporary chats are discarded. Adaptive memory belongs to the member and can be paused, cleared or exported by them.
21
22## How long
23
24The [DPA](/legal/dpa) states the periods: account and identity information for the life of the account; user-generated work product for 24 months from creation or last activity; processing artifacts such as vision and OCR pages and other transient files for 90 days; security audit logs for 24 months; usage telemetry for 13 months; encrypted backups on a rolling 90-day basis. Raw usage and metering events have their own retention, described on the [Trust Center](/trust). The Privacy Notice lists the legal and business-interest exceptions.
25
26Vera also measures its own retention and treats unexplained retention as a signal to investigate, not as a defect in itself: a regulated corpus that keeps everything is working as intended. A retention obligation cannot be reclaimed by a storage policy; an attempt to do so is refused, recorded and reported rather than skipped silently.
27
28## Getting it out
29
30### Export what Vera knows
31
32Workspace admins can export the knowledge Vera holds for the workspace, and group managers can do the same for the groups they manage: documents with their sources, approved statements, conflicts and their resolutions, document version history, and managed procedures with their real approval status. The bundle is Markdown plus CSV with a manifest that states what was and was not included. It can be delivered to a publish destination folder in your own storage (using the exporting member's own connection) or downloaded as a zip by the requester only. Each export writes an audit event.
33
34### Your own memory
35
36Every member can export their own adaptive memory and interview answers from their account page. These are not included in workspace or group exports.
37
38### Rights requests
39
40For access, correction or erasure beyond the self-service controls, the [Privacy Notice](/legal/privacy) gives the contact details; verifiable requests are acknowledged within 30 days as the Notice describes.
41
42## Deleting a document
43
44Erasure is registry-driven. Every store that can hold a document's substance — chunks, statements, vectors, caches, graph rows, queued work — is listed in one classification, and after the plan runs Vera verifies the result store by store rather than assuming it. If an original was written to your own storage under Archive, that c

44opy is yours and is not touched; Vera purges its remote-side references first, then the database. If any part cannot be confirmed, Vera says so instead of reporting success.
45
46### Version history
47
48Replacing or editing a document stashes the prior version (text plus metadata) before the erase, and a version can be restored by re-ingesting it under the same document id. The version store is not retrievable by chat or search, so an old version does not leak into answers.
49
50### Duplicate uploads
51
52A workspace setting decides what a direct upload does when it collides with an earlier direct upload: *replace* (the default — the prior copy is superseded through the same erasure path), *ask*, or *keep both*. A byte-identical file is reported as already present unless the uploader explicitly chose replace. Connector and watched-folder imports are not covered by this setting; they re-sync by identity instead.
53
54### Legal holds
55
56A legal hold is the documented exception to deletion. Holds are control-plane records that survive even the destruction of the workspace they protect. Every deletion path — document erase, storage reclaim, workspace teardown — checks holds and refuses with a named reason, and refuses closed if the hold check itself fails. Evidence packs export with self-contained hashes and verify from the file alone, so an artifact handed to counsel does not depend on the platform staying up.
57
58### Access records
59
60Being given the substance of a document — opening it, downloading an original, or receiving a {{brand.backed}} answer that drew on it — is recorded. The answer case is committed together with the chat turn, so the record cannot be lost after the answer was shown. Custody queries answer, per document, who was given its substance and when.
61
62## When a workspace is closed
63
64Workspace teardown applies the erasure classification, tears down stored files first, and then drops the workspace's entire database area. The lifecycle refuses to run while any legal hold covers the workspace's documents, and uploads are blocked during teardown so a late write cannot slip in. Control-plane rows about the workspace are classified explicitly: audit history is preserved, workspace data is wiped, and partial outcomes are reported rather than pretended away. At the end of the service the DPA gives you the choice of deletion or return of personal data held in the Vera layer; original files in your own storage are already yours.
65
66## Related articles
67
68- [What stays inside your workspace](/privacy/your-workspace)
69- [Everywhere data can leave Vera](/privacy/data-leaving-vera)
70- [Who at Vera can see your data](/privacy/who-can-access)
71- [Privacy FAQ](/privacy/faq)
72
73## Read the binding document
74
75- [Data Processing Addendum](/legal/dpa) — retention periods, deletion or return at the end of service.
76- [Privacy Notice](/legal/privacy) — your rights and how to exercise them.
77- [Trust Center](/trust) — the retention and custody controls with evidence.
78`;export{e as default};