BlockTheCalls.com — Data Retention & Deletion Policy
For counsel — not a live product. This page is published so our attorney can review the current draft. We are not accepting customers or payment.
Effective: August 31, 2026
In plain English. We keep as little as we can, for as short a time as we can. Call recordings and screening transcripts are deleted automatically after 7 days — not “when we get around to it,” but by an automated job and a storage lifecycle rule. Account data lasts as long as your account. You can close your account whenever you want — and if you change your mind, you have 30 days to ask us to restore it before the deletion becomes permanent.
This Policy sets out how long BlockTheCalls keeps each kind of data, how deletion is enforced, and how you ask us to delete data. It supplements the Privacy Policy, which governs what we collect and why.
1. Our stance
Data minimization. We collect the least data that lets the service work, we keep it for the shortest period that is useful, and then we delete it. Recorded call data is retained no longer than the maximum permitted by the strictest applicable U.S. state law.
Deletion is automated, not manual. Retention windows are enforced by scheduled jobs and object-storage lifecycle rules, so data expires whether or not anyone remembers to remove it. Unbounded retention is the failure mode we design against.
2. Retention schedule
| Data | How long we keep it | How deletion is enforced |
|---|---|---|
| Call recordings (audio) | 7 days | Automated daily purge, plus a 7-day object-storage lifecycle rule on the recordings bucket |
| Screening transcripts | 7 days | Automated daily purge of the recording records |
| Voicemail audio and transcripts | Until you delete it, or until your account is deleted | Deleted on your action, or with the account. A customer-chosen retention period is in development; we will update this row when it ships |
| Your call history (who called you, date, time, duration, screening outcome) | Until your account is deleted | Deleted with the account. Per-entry deletion is in development |
| Caller reputation records — a calling number and its reputation, recorded so we can recognize a spam or scam number when it calls someone else. The reputation record itself is not linked to you, and we do not store who that number called | Indefinitely | Not applicable — the reputation record is not associated with any customer |
| Numbers you report to us — if you report a number as spam, scam, or harassment, we keep a record that you reported it, so the same person cannot be counted twice | The report is kept indefinitely; the link to you is removed when your account is deleted | Automated sweep replaces your identifier with a random one that cannot be traced back to you. The report still counts as one person, so the number keeps its rating |
| Custodial authority records (an attestation of power of attorney or guardianship, and any document you send us) | Until custodial access ends or the account closes | Deleted with the access grant or the account |
| Blocked/allowed number lists | While your account is active, or until you remove the entry | On your action, or with account deletion |
| Account and profile data (name, email, phone, date of birth, plan, custodial relationships) | While your account is active. When you cancel or delete, we hold your data for 30 days so you can change your mind, then permanently delete it. Access and billing stop immediately — see Section 3 | Automated purge at the end of the 30-day restore window |
| Payment and transaction records | 7 years, as tax, accounting, and anti-fraud law requires. Card details are held by Stripe, not by us | Retained by policy; card data never stored by us |
| Support correspondence | No longer than 2 years from your last contact with us | Retention policy; automated enforcement is in development |
| System and security logs | 30 days | Log-store lifecycle policy |
| Privacy exposure-report information | Not collected through the public site today | Before report requests open, we will publish the exact one-time-report and account retention windows, deletion process, and any minimal compliance-suppression retention in this policy |
| Guardian protection-status data (whether supervised protection is active and notices sent to the account owner) | While the supervised account is active, or until the account is deleted | Account deletion and routine data-lifecycle enforcement |
| Records under legal hold | Until the hold is lifted | Exempt from automated purge (see Section 4) |
3. Deleting your data
Delete your account. Email [email protected] to close your account. (Closing your account from within the app and the web dashboard is in development.) Closing your account:
- stops all screening and future billing immediately;
- holds your data for 30 days so you can change your mind — see below;
- then permanently deletes your profile, your blocked/allowed lists, your voicemail, and your call history at the end of that 30-day window; and
- leaves nothing to delete in the way of recordings, because they have already expired on the 7-day schedule unless the request arrives inside that window — in which case they go with the account.
Changed your mind? You have 30 days. Closing your account is not instant destruction. For 30 days after you close it, your data is retained but inaccessible, and you can email [email protected] to have the account restored. We keep this window deliberately, so a cancellation made in haste — or by mistake — is recoverable. After 30 days the deletion is permanent and cannot be undone.
⚠ Two things the restore window does not cover. Call recordings and screening transcripts still expire on their own 7-day schedule during it, so those are gone whether or not you restore. And closing your account does not cancel the call forwarding you set up with your phone carrier — see Section 3 of the Terms — so turn that off, or your incoming calls will stop reaching you.
Delete individual items. You can delete individual voicemails in the app without closing your account. Per-item deletion of recordings and call-history entries is in development; recordings expire automatically after 7 days in any case.
Ask us directly. Email [email protected]. We verify your identity before acting and respond within the period your state’s law requires — generally 45 days, extendable once where permitted.
If you are not a customer but called someone who is, see Recording & Consent Notice Section 8.
Turn off call forwarding. Deleting your account does not, by itself, cancel the call forwarding you set up with your own carrier. Dial your carrier’s cancel-forwarding code, or use the in-app fail-safe, to send calls back to your normal phone.
4. When we keep data longer
We may retain data past the windows above only where:
- the law requires it (for example tax and accounting records);
- a legal hold applies — an actual or reasonably anticipated legal proceeding, investigation, or lawful preservation request. Records under hold are exempt from automated purge until the hold is lifted; or
- it is evidence of harm to a person we protect — for example calls a subscriber has flagged as harassment, threats, or stalking. These are retained for the subscriber’s protection and may be withheld from a deletion request by the person who placed the call.
5. Backups and anonymized data
Deleted data may persist briefly in encrypted backups until those backups rotate on their normal schedule; it is not restored to live systems and expires with the backup. Aggregate, de-identified statistics that cannot be linked back to you or to a calling number — for example counts of calls screened — may be kept indefinitely.
6. Changes
We may update this Policy. We will revise the “Effective” date and, for material changes, give notice as required by law.
7. Contact
[email protected] DCJP, LLC — 30 N Gould St Ste R, Sheridan, WY 82801