Retention and deletion

When a case is closed

A case is closed by its counsellor. A co-counsellor who has been added can do this too. Upcoming appointments are dropped. Clients with access can still read and download their room for a while after that.

Your centre's retention period runs from the closing. If the counsellor reopens the case, no period applies any more. It starts again when the case is closed again.

Cases in which nothing happens for a long time stay open. The counsellor then gets an email reminder. Whether to close the case is their own decision.

Choosing the retention period

In “Manage centre” you find the “Retention” card. There you choose after how many months closed cases are deleted, and click “Save”. You can choose from several periods between six months and three years. As long as nobody chooses a different one, the shortest applies.

A change works like this:

This way nothing is ever deleted earlier than what applied at the time of closing.

Which period is right

This depends on your requirements, for example from your parent organisation or your funders. onlineberatung.digital does not give legal advice on this.

If you are run by a church organisation, agree the period with your data protection officer.

The onlineberatung.digital privacy notice tells clients that your centre states its retention period in its own privacy notice. So if you change the period, check your notice too.

What happens on deletion

Every night onlineberatung.digital deletes all cases whose retention period has ended. The following disappear:

• the case notes,
• the messages,
• the appointments,
• the whiteboards,
• for in-person cases, the details of the people involved.

This cannot be undone. If a client no longer has a room after that, their account is deleted too.

What remains: the case's row in the statistics, without names, without a title and without content. More on this in Your centre's statistics.

Deleting earlier

The responsible counsellor can also delete a closed case before the end of the retention period, with “Delete room now” or “Delete case now”. This is intended for when a person asks for it. The same things disappear as after the retention period, and the row in the statistics remains. The log only records that something was deleted, without content. As a centre, check beforehand whether you need to keep anything for longer.

When a client deletes their account

A client can delete their account themselves at any time. Their pseudonym, password and email address are then gone immediately, and they can no longer get into the room. The room stays with your centre: it is closed, upcoming appointments are dropped, and messages, appointments and case notes remain until the end of your retention period. The counsellor gets an email about it without a name. A room like this cannot be reopened. If the person asks for earlier deletion, the responsible counsellor can delete the room straight away (see “Deleting earlier” above).

The office sees in every open in-person case after how many months it will be deleted once it is closed. For a closed case, the exact date is shown there.

Deleting manually

You do not delete individual cases yourselves. Deletion takes place after the retention period.

Clients can delete their account themselves at any time. Their rooms go with it, with messages, appointments and case notes. In couples counselling, the room remains for the other person.

Cases of former counsellors

Closed cases of people who no longer counsel at your centre also stay with your centre until the end of the retention period. So that someone is responsible during this time, hand them over to a counsellor under “Cases without a counsellor”. How to do this is explained in Handing over cases.

Tip: Even if your centre is blocked, for example after the trial, the retention periods continue to run.