Data Archival (Retention) Policy

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Overview

Data archival is the systematic process of removing inactive or dormant user data to ensure that your marketing workspace remains lean, focusing exclusively on users who provide genuine engagement opportunities and business value. MoEngage implements data archival to balance platform performance with global privacy standards:

• Performance & Data hygiene: MoEngage maintains a lean and high-performance environment populated exclusively by reachable and marketable users. This high-fidelity dataset ensures faster segmentation query and provides more accurate analytics, as your insights will reflect genuine user intent rather than being skewed by stagnant, non-functional records.
• Regulatory Compliance (GDPR, CCPA, and India’s DPDP Act): The policy aligns with the GDPR principles of Storage Limitation and Data Minimization. User data should be kept only as long as there is a legitimate business purpose; once a user is no longer reachable or marketable, archiving their data reduces legal liability and protects user privacy. For how this supports India’s Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, see Data Retention and India’s DPDP Act, 2023.

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Archival Criteria

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User Profiles

MoEngage classifies every user profile as Registered or Anonymous based on whether the profile has an active identifier. This is the same classification used for Identity Resolution and shown elsewhere on your dashboard — archival doesn’t apply a separate rule.

1. Registered Users: A profile that has at least one active identifier present.
   • In workspaces without Identity Resolution enabled, ID is the only active identifier — a user is Registered if ID is present.
   • In workspaces with Identity Resolution enabled (up to five identifiers can be configured, for example ID, Email ID, Mobile Number), a user is Registered if any one of the active identifiers is present. Because these represent known customers with a higher potential for long-term value, MoEngage archives Registered profiles after a longer period of inactivity.
2. Anonymous Users: A profile with none of the active identifiers present. To keep your workspace lean and focused on high-intent audiences, MoEngage archives Anonymous profiles after a shorter period of inactivity.

• Activity: Any interaction with your app or website (any standard or custom event) serves as a signal of intent. Any event or user update is considered as an activity.
• Campaign Engagement: The policy aims to retain users who actively interact with your communications. Interactions such as Opens or Clicks serve as engagement signals. MoEngage-generated and internal campaign-processing events (for example, delivery failures or control-group events) don’t count as engagement — see the full list below.

The following internal and system-generated events never reset the archival clock, even though they’re associated with a campaign:

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Archival Rules

Here is the summary of the rules that apply for archival:

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Examples

The following examples show how the activity and campaign engagement criteria combine to decide whether a profile is archived:

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Events

By default, events remain available for 60 days. This determines how far back you can look to analyse user behaviour, for example, “Users who purchased in the last 2 months”. The event retention period (also referred to as Data Retention Policy (DRP)) is extendable on a request basis. Contact your dedicated MoEngage Customer Success Manager or the Support team. This DRP setting also governs Registered user profile retention (see User Profiles). It has no impact on device retention or Anonymous user profile retention, which continue to follow their own fixed windows.

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Devices

MoEngage archives devices that have been inactive for 60 days. Removing the inactive and unreachable devices ensures that your Push campaigns are processed faster and directed only at active devices.

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Data Retention and India’s DPDP Act, 2023

India’s Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, sets guidelines for how the personal data of individuals in India is collected, processed, and retained. MoEngage provides APIs and controls that help you respond when your end users in India exercise their rights under the Act.

• Retention: MoEngage retains personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purpose it was collected for. The archival policy described on this page supports this by automatically removing inactive user profiles, events, and devices from the platform.
• Erasure requests: When an end user asks you to delete their data, use the GDPR/CCPA data request API to remove all personal data associated with that user from MoEngage.

For MoEngage’s complete legal data-retention terms and the rights available to Indian data principals, including the grievance and Data Protection Officer contact, refer to the Additional Information for Indian Residents and Data Retention sections of the MoEngage Privacy Policy.

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FAQs

If an archived user comes back to the platform, does MoEngage retain the user consent and subscription status?

No. Once a user is archived, MoEngage removes that user from all MoEngage services. If the user returns, MoEngage treats them as a new user, and none of the earlier attributes are retained, including consent and subscription status.

Does updating a user attribute reset the archival clock?

Yes. Sending a user attribute update — through the SDK, a Data API, or a file import — counts as activity, the same as a standard or custom event, and resets the archival clock.

Does MoEngage check reachability (for example, valid email or mobile number) before archiving a user?

No. Archival is based only on inactivity — how long since the user’s last event, attribute update, or campaign interaction. MoEngage does not check whether a user’s contact details are valid or reachable.