Legal
Platform Data Deletion Policy
Summary
Augos deletes platform data only when asked: by an individual user for their personal information, or by a customer for its telemetry and organisation data. This policy covers augos.io, its gated offers and the Augos Mobile App. It sets out what is deleted, what stays and why.
Before any deletion starts, a customer signs, or an individual accepts, a data deletion agreement.
How to ask for deletion
Send your request to the Information Officer at support@augos.io. Tell us who you are, which organisation you use the platform through, and what you would like deleted. We will confirm your identity, and for a customer request your authority, before anything is deleted. When we are done, we will tell you in writing what was deleted, what stayed and why.
How the platform uses personal information is set out in our Platform Privacy Policy.
Scope
This policy covers data held on the Augos platform at augos.io. It does not cover anything else Augos holds.
In scope
- The Augos platform at augos.io (live.augos.io), including the Data API and the alerts, reports and service emails the platform sends.
- Gated offers: offers or features that a signed-in platform user reaches through augos.io, and nothing else.
- The Augos Mobile App: the new Augos mobile app, which carries every element of the web platform at live.augos.io. The Augos Load Curtailment and Augos Community Curtailment apps stay covered while they remain in use.
Out of scope
- The augos.co.za website and its analytics, which have their own Website Privacy Policy.
- The online shop.
- Email correspondence, accounting records (including invoices) and workspace files. These sit outside the platform, and accounting records are kept for as long as tax and company law require, currently up to seven years.
- Copies a customer has exported and now holds in its own systems.
Definitions
Platform data falls into two categories, and each is deleted under its own rules: personal information, and telemetry data.
| Personal information | Telemetry data | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Information that identifies a person, as POPIA defines it | Readings and state data from devices on the platform that do not identify a person |
| Examples | User account details (name, email, telephone, role, permissions); audit records of sign-ins, retrievals and control actions; alert and report recipients; support requests; named machine operators and their figures; household consumption in the Community Curtailment app; app-usage analytics | Consumption (electricity, water, gas, fuel), demand, power factor, voltage, current, frequency; flow, pressure, level, volume; temperature, humidity, vibration; equipment state (doors, beams, tamper, smoke, sound level, never audio); device health (battery voltage, signal strength) |
| Responsible party | Augos for user accounts and audit records. The customer for its named operators and for the information its organisation puts into the platform, including household consumption shown in the Community Curtailment app. | The customer. Augos is its operator. |
Telemetry data includes everything calculated from it: aggregates at every interval, tariff and cost calculations, bill verification and reports.
Where the two meet. A reading is telemetry unless it can be linked to a named person. A measurement point named after a staff member, a sub-metered tenancy with one occupant and a household meter all create that link. Where the link is only a name, removing the name returns the readings to telemetry. Where the link is built in, the readings are treated as personal information.
Rules
Augos deletes platform data only on a specific request, and only after it has checked who is asking and whether they may.
- Deletion is on request. Nothing is deleted automatically when a contract ends or a retention period runs out.
- Two kinds of requester. An individual user may ask for their own personal information to be deleted. A customer may ask, in writing, for its telemetry data and for personal information its organisation is responsible for.
- The responsible party decides. Where Augos is the responsible party, the Information Officer decides. Where the customer is, Augos acts as its operator on its written instruction. An individual's request for information the customer holds is passed to the customer, and Augos helps it respond.
- Identity and authority are checked first. No deletion starts until the requester is verified. A customer request must come from someone authorised to give it. No deletion starts until a customer has signed, or an individual has accepted, the data deletion agreement.
- Deletion is permanent. Deleted data cannot be restored, and archived data deleted at a customer's request is no longer available if the contract is reactivated. Augos offers an export first.
- Some data stays. Augos keeps what the law requires, such as invoices. It keeps the record that a control action happened, with the person's link removed. Data already anonymised and aggregated into platform statistics stays where the customer agreement allows.
- Deletion covers every place the data sits. That means the platform, gated offers and the Augos Mobile App. Backups are cleared as they expire, and deletions are re-applied if a backup is ever restored.
- Every request is recorded. The requester receives written confirmation of what was deleted, what stayed and why.
Roles
The Information Officer owns every deletion request from receipt to closure; platform engineering carries the deletions out.
| Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Information Officer | Receives and logs requests, checks identity and authority, decides, signs off each deletion, replies to the requester and keeps the request register. Contact: support@augos.io |
| Support | Receives requests at support@augos.io or from staff, logs them the same day and passes them to the Information Officer |
| Platform engineering | Carries out approved deletions on the platform and the Augos Mobile App, tracks backup expiry and re-applies deletions after any restore |
| Chief Executive | Receives any request at risk of missing its target date |
| Customer administrator | Gives a customer's written instruction, confirms the scope and confirms they are authorised to give it |
| Individual user | Asks for their own personal information to be deleted |
What is deleted, and what stays
On a verified request, each type of platform data is handled as the table shows.
| Data | Category | Deleted on request by | What happens | What stays |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| User account details (name, email, telephone, role, permissions) | Personal | The user, or the customer for its own users | Deleted | Nothing |
| Audit records of sign-ins, retrievals and control actions | Personal | The user | The link to the person is removed and replaced with an anonymous identifier | The record that an action happened, and when |
| Alert and report recipients | Personal | The user, or the customer | Removed from every recipient list and deleted | Nothing |
| Support requests raised on the platform | Personal | The user | Deleted | Nothing, unless an open dispute needs it. Email correspondence about a request is outside scope. |
| Named machine operators and their figures | Personal | The customer only | Deleted on the customer's written instruction | Nothing |
| Community Curtailment household consumption | Personal | The customer that runs the estate's programme. Augos is its operator. | Deleted on the customer's written instruction | Nothing |
| App-usage analytics (app opened, device type, app identifier) | Personal | The user | Held two months, then expires under the analytics setting. It is not deleted sooner. | Nothing after two months |
| Gated-offer registrations and acceptances | Personal | The user | Registration deleted | Any signed agreement the offer produced |
| Telemetry readings, every stored interval | Telemetry | The customer only | Deleted for the named points, devices or sites, or the whole account | Anonymised, aggregated platform statistics, where the customer agreement allows |
| Calculated data (aggregates, tariff and cost calculations, bill verification, reports) | Telemetry | The customer only | Stored calculations are deleted with the readings. Anything calculated on request can no longer be produced once the readings are gone. | Reports already emailed to people, which are outside the platform |
| Device records (identifier, point set-up, health metrics) | Telemetry | The customer only | Health metrics deleted with the readings. The device registration stays so the hardware can be reprovisioned. | Device registration |
The five-year archive. After a contract ends, Augos archives measurement data for at least five years in case the contract is reactivated. A customer's specific written request for deletion, with the data deletion agreement signed, overrides that archive.