Inactive households

What it's about

Households where nobody does anything for twelve months are deleted, along with every account in them. Two reminders go out beforehand to the household admins. A single sign-in resets the period.

Why it's here

Data nobody needs any more should not sit on a server forever – that is the storage limitation principle in Article 5 GDPR, and it is also what you would want from a service you tried out years ago. A household holds calendars, tasks, contacts, documents, sometimes health data. Once nobody opens it any more, it has no job left.

How it works

Anything counts as activity: a sign-in, an opened app, and everything that happens inside the household – for every member. So one person who keeps using patchio is enough to keep everything exactly as it is for everyone.

The sequence:

• After eleven months without any activity, the household admins get an email naming the exact deletion date.
• About three weeks later a final reminder follows.
• After twelve months the household and every account in it are deleted. This runs through the same deletion you can request yourself – nothing is left behind.

Households with a running subscription or trial are exempt. And if a member is active in a second household that is still alive, nothing is deleted at all: the deletion would take an account with it that is still needed there.

How to do it

Your account settings (Profile, then Account & security) show a “Last active” line with the date until which the household stays at the very least. If you want to keep the data but stop using patchio, download the complete data export from the same place first.

Good to know

The reminders go to the household admins and cannot be turned off – they announce the deletion of your own data, which makes them something other than a notification you can opt out of.

Related topics

• Privacy and your rights
• Roles in the household