Docs / Account Deletion

Account Deletion

An admin can delete their SAR Portal account at any time. This guide explains the process and what happens to your data.

Deleting an account is Admin-only. Case Managers, Reviewers and Read Only users cannot open the Delete Account page; if one of them wants their account removed, an Admin deletes them from the Users page (see User Management).

Types of Deletion

There is one Delete Account page. What it deletes depends on whether you are the last admin:

Your Own Account (another admin remains)

If your organization has at least one other admin:

Whole Organization (you are the last admin)

If you are the only admin:

You do not need to remove the other users first.

Opening the Delete Account Page

  1. Go to Settings → Advanced
  2. Scroll to Danger Zone
  3. Next to Delete Account (“Permanently delete your organization and all associated data”), click Delete Account

The page shows a warning and a list of what will be deleted. If you are the last admin, it shows Critical Warning: You are the last administrator and lists how many user accounts and cases will be deleted, plus your document storage.

Deleting Your Own Account

Requirements

Process

  1. Open the Delete Account page (see above)
  2. Read the Account Deletion Warning
  3. Fill in Why are you deleting your account? (required)
  4. Tick both boxes:
    • “I understand that this action is permanent and cannot be undone”
    • “I confirm that I want to exercise my right to erasure under EU & UK GDPR Article 17”
  5. Click Delete My Account Permanently

The button stays disabled until the reason is filled in and both boxes are ticked. Click Cancel to go back to Settings.

What Happens

  1. Your account is deleted and you are signed out
  2. Your sign-in is removed
  3. You receive a confirmation email
  4. Your email address in audit entries is replaced with “[Redacted]” and IP addresses and browser details are removed; entries stay linked to an anonymous identifier
  5. The organization’s cases remain (for compliance)

Deleting Your Organization

Warning

This action is irreversible and deletes:

Requirements

Process

  1. Open the Delete Account page (see above)
  2. Read the Critical Warning: You are the last administrator and the list of what will be deleted
  3. Click Download All Case Data (JSON) if you want a copy of your case data
  4. Fill in Why are you deleting your account? (required)
  5. Tick both boxes:
    • “I understand that this action is permanent and cannot be undone”
    • “I confirm that I want to exercise my right to erasure under EU & UK GDPR Article 17”
  6. Click Delete My Account Permanently
If something changes while the page is open
If another admin is added or removed after you opened the page, the deletion would no longer match what you confirmed. Nothing is deleted. The page explains what deleting would do now and asks you to tick both boxes again.

What Happens

Deletion from the live service is immediate and cannot be undone by you. Backup copies expire within 14 days (files) and 7 days (database) and are never restored for you. As soon as you confirm:

Kept afterwards:

Don't confuse deletion with cancellation
Deletion from the live service is immediate and cannot be undone. If you only want to stop billing while keeping your data, cancel your subscription instead - that gives you a 90-day read-only + export window before your data is permanently deleted. See Plans & Pricing.

Before Deleting

Consider

Data Export

Before deletion:

  1. Export each case from its case page (Export as JSON or Export as PDF). If you are the last admin, you can also use Download All Case Data (JSON) on the Delete Account page
  2. Download needed documents
  3. Export audit logs with Export CSV on the Audit Logs page

Data export stays available while your subscription is restricted (GDPR Article 20).

Subscription

When organization is deleted:

What Happens to Your Data

Personal Information

User Data:

Organization Data:

Case Data

On full organization deletion, cases are deleted outright - not anonymized:

Cases:

Documents:

(Email hashing applies to the separate case-anonymization feature used when you close a case but keep your account - not to full organization deletion.)

Audit Logs

Kept for your audit-log retention period (7 years by default):

Basis: GDPR Article 17(3)(e) - establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims

Deletion vs Cancellation

Deleting your organization is not the same as canceling your subscription:

Cancel subscription Delete organization
Billing Stops Stops (Stripe auto-cancelled)
Your data Kept read-only, with export available, for 90 days, then permanently deleted (we email you 10 days before) Deleted immediately and permanently
Reversible Resubscribe within 90 days to resume No - cannot be recovered

If you simply want to stop paying but might return, cancel instead of deleting. See Plans & Pricing for cancellation details.

When You Delete an Organization with an Active Subscription

Trial Accounts

Recovering Deleted Accounts

User Accounts

Cannot be recovered. Another admin can invite you again if needed.

Organizations

Cannot be recovered. Would need to:

  1. Register as new organization
  2. Start fresh
  3. Re-upload any needed data

GDPR Rights

This deletion process satisfies:

Getting Help

If you have questions about deletion:

Alternatives to Deletion

Before deleting, consider:

Downgrade Plan

Cancel Instead of Delete

Remove Users Instead

Export and Archive