FAQ for New Data Retention Functionality on the Elevate® Platform

• You’ll have the ability to select how long we retain your respondent personal information (respondent PI) on our Elevate® assessment delivery platform. Effective October 19, 2024, you’ll be able to select your own data retention period for respondent PI in your Elevate account from a range of options directly through your Elevate account settings.


• If you don’t specify how long you wish to retain respondent PI on Elevate, we’ll apply a default retention period. Unless specified otherwise by you, the respondent PI in your Elevate account will be retained for a default period of 20 years before deletion, provided that your Elevate account remains active. Selecting your own longer data retention period or using the default retention period provides extended access to past respondents and their information; you’ll be able to conveniently add them to new projects and reuse their assessment results while also ensuring long-term access to their reports.


• How we delete respondent PI beginning November 2, 2024, will now change from what we previously advised. When we made changes to how we handle personal information and introduced our global Privacy Policy last year, we communicated that all respondent PI more than 18 months old at the time of November 2, 2024, would be deleted. Under our new policy, we will apply a default data retention period if you don’t select your own retention period, and this default period will be 20 years. On November 2, 2024, we’ll delete any respondent PI older than 20 years, or older than your selected retention period, together with any respondent PI from expired Elevate accounts. Going forward, we’ll delete respondent PI on a rolling basis, in accordance with your own retention period settings or the default period, as applicable.

"Personal information” under data protection principles is information which, when taken together with other information, is capable of identifying a person. Information we collect from respondents includes respondents’ first and last names, email addresses, item responses, assessment results, and reports, together with any demographic information respondents may have optionally provided.

“Respondent personal information” is information as above which we collect and which, when taken together, is capable of identifying a person. For example, information as above when taken together with identifying information such as name and/or email address, is deemed respondent personal information. For further information on how we handle respondent personal information, please see our privacy policy.

When the updated Privacy Policy takes effect on October 19, 2024, you’ll be able to select your preferred retention period by following these steps:

1. Log in to your Elevate account.
2. Click Account in the global navigation (the person icon in the upper right corner of the dashboard). Then select Account Management from the drop-down menu.
3. Click Data Retention Settings in the navigation menu on the left side of the page.
4. On the Data Retention Settings page, select one of the following options from the pull-down menu:
   • 18 months
   • 2 years
   • 3 years
   • 4 years
   • 5 years
   • 10 years
   • 20 years
   • Retain data indefinitely
5. Click Save to apply your selection.

Note: The system defaults to 20 years, so you only need to select an option from the pull-down menu if you want a retention period other than the default 20-year retention period.

Once you’ve selected your own data retention periods as above, the changes will take effect immediately, and any applicable respondent personal information (respondent PI) older than the period you set will be deleted. For example:

• If you previously had no chosen retention period and you now choose “10 years,” your respondent PI will be automatically deleted 10 years after completion of applicable assessment(s).
• If you choose “Retain data indefinitely,” your respondent PI will be kept in perpetuity, as long as your Elevate account remains active and as long as you do not select an alternative data retention period.

You can make changes anytime, which will take effect immediately, but once data has been deleted, it cannot be recovered. For example: If you choose a data retention period of 2 years and then 3 years later choose a data retention period of 5 years, data will already have been deleted in accordance with the prior, shorter period of 2 years; then the new, longer period will apply with respect to any respondent PI on the Elevate platform falling within that longer retention period.

You can make changes as many times as you’d like, but note that they’re implemented right away, and once data has been deleted, it will not be recoverable.

No. This new functionality puts you in control of your own data retention and will operate automatically according to those settings—any respondent personal information in your Elevate account will be automatically deleted on a rolling basis based on your data retention period setting. There will not be email alerts or warnings through your account.

No. Once the data has been deleted for whatever reason (data retention setting or Elevate account expiry), it can no longer be recovered.

No. Different retention periods cannot be applied to different types of respondent personal information. Once you select a retention period, it will apply to all respondent personal information in your Elevate account.

If your Elevate account lapses, expires, or is terminated, all respondent personal information and other information in your Elevate account will be permanently deleted from Elevate and our systems after a 90-day grace period, regardless of your retention period.

Yes. Whichever retention period you set will be automatically applied to the data in your respondents’ Elevate accounts. For example, if you select a data retention period of 10 years, your respondent will have 10 years of access to any post-assessment materials in their respondent account, provided that you maintain an active Elevate subscription.

Individuals who completed MBTI®Complete can access their type description report and post-assessment content through their Elevate respondent account for as long as the practitioner who assigned it maintains an active Elevate account, subject to the data retention period selected by the practitioner or the default retention period, as applicable.

Since the nature of these offerings entails a longer learning journey, we currently retain respondent personal information connected with these offerings for as long as their use of the relevant offering is active (with inactive being deemed 18 months of inactivity on the relevant site in relation to these offerings). This is not changing. Any data retention period that you set within Elevate will not apply to these offerings, nor will the default retention period.

Yes, data protection and privacy compliance are critical to our business and to our customers. The new functionality is designed to provide you with flexibility in how you handle data retention on our Elevate platform while still operating in compliance with data protection and privacy laws and regulations, including data protection principles. You, as data controller, will have flexibility and control over your own data retention settings, and if you do not select your own data retention period, we, as data processor, will apply a default retention period.

To see how we handle personal data generally, we recommend that you read the full Privacy Policy.

No. For customers on our OPPassessment delivery platform, there will be no changes to the current 18-month retention policy.