Records and Retention

General orientation, not legal advice; retention obligations differ by jurisdiction. When assessment records move between systems, time tracking integrations illustrates why every transfer needs a purpose, owner, retention rule and reconciliation check.

A proctoring programme accumulates video of private spaces at cohort scale. The retention decision is usually a default in a settings panel.

What is held

Session video and audio.

Room scans.

Identity images and, in some systems, stored face template.

Flag data and reviewer notes.

Case records where a matter proceeded.

Five categories with different sensitivities and different appropriate periods, and most institutions apply one figure to all of them.

Setting periods

Session recordings: the appeal deadline plus a margin. Weeks, not years.

Room scans: shorter, and separately deletable, because they are the most intrusive and the least useful after the exam.

stored face template: deleted at the end of the assessment period unless there is a specific reason.

Flag data and reviewer decisions: longer, because they support fairness analysis and are far less sensitive.

Case records: per the institution's normal academic records policy.

Where it lives

Usually on the supplier's infrastructure, frequently in another country.

Which raises questions about transfer, subprocessors and access by the supplier's own staff.

Ask: who at the supplier can view a session, is that access logged, and can the institution see the log.

"Nobody, unless support is requested" is a common answer and should be tested rather than accepted.

Access within the institution

Restricted to named roles.

Logged.

And audited occasionally, because access to recordings of students' bedrooms is exactly the kind of thing that gets looked at out of curiosity.

An institution that cannot say who viewed a given session has a problem it has not discovered yet.

Deletion that is real

Confirmed in writing, covering backups.

With a stated maximum for backup expiry.

And tested once: ask the supplier to demonstrate that a deleted session is gone.

"Deleted from the interface" is not deletion.

Student access

Students can usually request their own data under access rights.

Which for proctoring means a video of themselves, and institutions should be able to provide it without a project.

Rehearse it. The first request should not be the first time anybody tries.

The end of the contract

What happens to years of recordings when a supplier is changed?

Agreed at signature: deletion with confirmation, or export in a usable form.

Institutions routinely discover at renewal that they have no answer, and by then the leverage is gone.

What to check

Do you have separate retention periods, or one figure?

Can room scans be deleted independently?

Who at the supplier can view sessions, and is it logged?

And what happens to everything if you change supplier next year?

The point

An institution that cannot say who viewed a given session has a problem it has not discovered yet.

Access to recordings of students' bedrooms is exactly the kind of thing that gets looked at out of curiosity.

Worth stating

Students can usually request their own data, which for proctoring means video of themselves.

Rehearse it: the first request should not be the first time anybody in the institution tries to produce one.

Also worth knowing

Five categories with different sensitivities — sessions, room scans, identity images, flag data, case records — and most institutions apply one retention figure to all of them.

Room scans should be shortest and separately deletable.

And finally

Agree at signature what happens to recordings when a supplier is changed: deletion with confirmation, or export in a usable form.

Institutions routinely discover at renewal that they have no answer, and by then the leverage is gone.

Summary

Set retention by category rather than one figure, with room scans shortest and separately deletable, and confirm that deletion covers supplier backups.

In summary

Recordings of students' homes accumulate at cohort scale, held by a supplier, for a period usually set by a default.

Each of those three facts deserves a decision rather than an inheritance. For wider institutional context, consult the U.S. Department of Education.