If you send us paper documents, we will usually make an electronic copy of them. You should keep a copy. We will usually destroy the hard copies when six months has passed since we received them. Please do not send us original documents (e.g. degree certificates, death certificates).
We keep all of the information you send us, and which the provider sends us about your complaint, on an electronic database. We will usually move your complaint record to an archive database two years after we close our review of your complaint. We will remove any information from the record which might identify you, and we will delete the documents which you and the higher education provider sent us.
Our phone calls are automatically recorded. We usually keep these recordings for 12 months. Usually we write a note summarising the content of conversations via phone or video conferencing and add this to the complaint file, but sometimes we will add the recording (for example, if the conversation includes a lot of detailed information). In those cases, we will keep the recording until the complaint file is archived.
We keep some information about complaints for up to 10 years, to allow us to identify trends and themes in complaints and the students which are using our service (for example, postgraduate students, Law students, mature students). You will never be identifiable in any statistical information we produce.
We usually keep a copy of every Complaint Outcome (and any Recommendations we make) for six years after we have finished looking at the complaint. We remove information which might identify you from the Complaint Outcomes. We keep the Complaint Outcomes for training purposes, and to monitor the kind of complaints we received and their outcomes.
