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Security

Protecting Customer Data with Automatic File Expiration and Deletion

Brian Holyfield · 2 min read
Protecting Customer Data with Automatic File Expiration and Deletion

Automated expiration and deletion of sensitive data is one of the best, yet most often overlooked security controls an organization can use to protect itself and its customers. The absence of this control has been highlighted repeatedly in the continuing trend of high profile security incidents. Put simply, sensitive data that no longer exists cannot be accidentally exposed by employees, leaked by insecure partners or vendors, or stolen and ransomed by malicious hackers.

SendSafely makes it easy to control how long sensitive data is available, and therefore potentially at risk, before being automatically expired and deleted.

Good security controls help minimize the blast radius of future security incidents. Appropriately implementing data expiration and deletion can help protect against breaches affecting your company directly or your software vendors. Organization wide enforcement, along with tools allowing employees to make good security decisions when handling sensitive data are two of the most powerful and easiest to implement controls at a company’s disposal.


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Frequently asked questions

Why is automatic file expiration an important security control?

Sensitive data that no longer exists cannot be accidentally exposed by employees, leaked by partners or vendors, or stolen by attackers. Automated expiration and deletion limits how long data is at risk and reduces the impact of future incidents.

What happens to a SendSafely file after it expires?

After the expiration period, the link is disabled and recipients can no longer view or download the contents. When SendSafely described this process in 2023, the data was deleted five days later and was no longer accessible to the sender, recipient, or anyone else.

Can admins enforce file expiration policies across a SendSafely organization?

Yes. SendSafely portal administrators can set platform-wide minimum and maximum expiration settings for all users to align with compliance requirements. See SendSafely access and retention controls.

Can senders limit how many times a file is downloaded in SendSafely?

Yes. At the package level, employees can set expiration in days within organization limits and can also limit how many times files can be downloaded.

Does SendSafely expiration apply to files shared through Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Salesforce?

Yes. SendSafely’s expiration and deletion covers its Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Salesforce integrations, so the data lifecycle is controlled by SendSafely rather than the ticketing system. Read about helpdesk security.

Written by Brian Holyfield