Data Deletion

Deletion is not a feature request. It is a structural property enforced by system design.

Deletion Principles

User-initiated deletion takes effect without delay. Deletion is not queued, scheduled, or subject to grace periods.

Deleted data cannot be recovered. This is intentional. Recovery mechanisms are liabilities.

Users can verify that deletion has occurred. Verification does not require trust in operator claims.

Deletion includes all copies: primary storage, backups, caches, and derived data. No shadow copies, no retained metadata.

Where data is encrypted, deletion of the encryption key renders data unrecoverable without destroying storage media.

Backups have defined lifetimes. Backup retention does not exceed operational necessity. Old backups are automatically destroyed.

Deletion requests are not logged for compliance purposes. The act of requesting deletion is itself potentially sensitive information.

The only way to guarantee data security is to not have the data.