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- Data Updates
- Important: Retention Deadline 2026
Please ensure all expired Student records are removed from the database using the Retention Tool by 5PM on Monday 30th November 2026
Throughout the year, Student records move into the database Retention Tool if they fulfil the criteria for expiration, as set out in the Data Retention Schedule in the section 12 of the HEAT Data Protection Policy.
This tool filters when a record has expired and is due for deletion. Anyone who has a Coordinator/Lead database role on the system will have the option to export these records out of the database should you wish to retain these for audit purposes and delete the records accordingly.
Final Deadline
Now the new academic year has begun, is time to ensure any expired Student records are deleted from the database. We ask members to delete any expired Student records in the Retention Tool by 5PM on Monday 30th November 2026.
Important: We will check the Retention Tool after the deadline has passed, and if there are still records that require deletion, we will be in touch with the Database and Legal Point of Contacts for your organisation to inform them that their organisation is in breach of the HEAT Legal Agreement through non-compliance with GDPR.
How can I review and delete my expired records?
We have listened to member feedback around managing records in the Retention Tool and have implemented several improvements to help members review and manage any expired records. These improvements were released as hotfix 2.31.11 to the Summer 2026 Update to the database, which can be found on the Summer 2026 Hotfixes page.
New Audit Field
In the Privacy tab of the Privacy tab of the Student record (members only), a new ‘Retention Expiry Date’ field has been added to provide a timestamp to when an individual became eligible for removal. This read-only audit field automatically flags when the ‘Retention Expired’ field was selected by the system and appears in the Duplicate Clean Tool and the Student Export (members only), so you can have more intelligence around which records are expired when managing these across the system.
New Bulk Delete Option
In the Retention Tool (members only), there is now the option to ‘Delete All’ in the ‘Bulk Actions’ button at the top of the table of records. This has been included to support you to remove large numbers of records at once within the tool itself, which significantly streamlines the review and removal process.
The ‘Delete All’ option will identify how many records are in the Retention Tool, and once selected, the system will require confirmation that you would like to proceed with deleting these records
Guidance and Support
The Administering and Managing HEAT online training course provides step-by-step guidance on how to manage data cleaning, which includes exporting and deleting records from the Retention Tool that have reached the end of their life on the HEAT database.
You can find more information about our online courses and instructions on how to sign up for Moodle if you haven’t already on our website’s Training & Support page.
If you have any queries about managing records in the Retention Tool, please contact HEAT Support for assistance.
Where previously the HEAT Service has tried to accommodate instances in which members might have been using a retention schedule which allowed them to hold records longer than our Retention Schedule sets out, we are no longer able to do this.
Our hosts, the London and South East (LASE) University Group, have advised that HEAT cannot allow members to leave records in the Retention Tool beyond the Data Retention Schedule’s specified time period. Additionally, we have been advised that members (or HEAT) must delete records in the Retention Tool (members only) to comply with the Data Retention Schedule.
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