Retention policy
A retention policy defines how long session recordings are kept before deletion, and under what rules, such as 30 days for routine sessions and 90 for error sessions. Recordings age poorly on both axes that matter: their analytical value decays within weeks while their liability as stored personal data persists.
How it works
Retention is enforced at the storage layer, deleting event streams and their indexes past their window, with policy usually differentiated by segment: error or flagged sessions kept longer than routine ones, sampled aggregates (heatmap data, funnel metrics) kept after the underlying sessions are gone. GDPR's storage-limitation principle requires that retention match the stated purpose, so "indefinitely, in case it is useful" is not a defensible policy. Deletion must also cascade: derived artifacts like exported videos, AI summaries containing personal data, and search indexes count. Shorter retention is additionally the cheapest storage optimization available, ahead of any compression work.
Where you encounter it
Privacy documentation and storage cost planning through sampling, event compression, and retention, plus incident scoping where retention length bounds exposure.