User data deletion instructions

Deleting data linked to Facebook and Instagram

Where you have interacted with Soteria Cloud through Facebook or Instagram — for example by submitting a lead form on one of our advertisements, messaging our page, or using a Meta login where we offer one — the platform may pass us basic profile information such as your name, email address and the enquiry you submitted.

You can remove Soteria Cloud’s access at any time directly from your Meta account, and separately ask us to delete what we already hold:

Step A — remove our access on Meta

1. Open Settings & privacy in Facebook or Instagram, then Settings.
2. Go to Apps and websites (Facebook) or Website permissions → Apps and websites (Instagram).
3. Find Soteria Cloud in the list of active integrations.
4. Select Remove and confirm. This revokes our future access to your profile information.

Removing the integration stops any further sharing, but it does not automatically erase information we received before that point. Complete step B as well.

Step B — ask us to erase what we hold

Email [email protected] and tell us that your data reached us through Facebook or Instagram. Include the name and email address on your Meta profile so we can locate the record. We will verify the request, delete the data and confirm in writing.

What we delete

On a verified request we erase or irreversibly de-identify:

• your name, job title, company, email address and telephone number;
• enquiry, quote, trial and lead-form submissions, including free-text messages;
• newsletter and marketing subscription records and topic preferences;
• profile data received from Facebook, Instagram or another social platform integration;
• website analytics identifiers that can be tied back to you, and any advertising audience list you appear on; and
• support correspondence held in our ticketing and email systems.

We also instruct the operators who process data on our behalf — our email, CRM, ticketing, hosting and analytics providers — to carry out the same deletion.

What we may have to keep

A small amount of information may lawfully be retained even after a deletion request. We keep only the minimum needed, and we tell you exactly what has been retained and why:

• Financial and tax records — invoices and payment records must be retained to meet South African tax and company-law requirements.
• Suppression records — a minimal record of your email address on a do-not-contact list, so that we do not market to you again by mistake.
• Legal and dispute records — information needed to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim, or to comply with a lawful instruction.
• Security logs — retained for a limited period for fraud prevention and system security.

If you are an MSP partner or a partner’s customer

These instructions cover the personal data Soteria Cloud holds about you as a responsible party — marketing, enquiries, social platform interactions and account contacts.

Where an MSP partner uses our platform to protect their own customers’ systems, that partner remains the responsible party for the data inside those workloads and we act only as an operator. If you are an end customer of one of our partners, please send your deletion request to that partner first. They can instruct us to delete the data, and we will support them in doing so. Backup and disaster-recovery data is deleted in line with the retention policy the partner has configured.

Deleting an active service account will end the protection attached to it. Where a request would terminate a live backup or recovery service, we will confirm with you before proceeding.

Backups and how long deletion takes

Personal data is removed from our live systems as soon as a request is verified, normally within 30 days. Copies held in routine system backups are overwritten on the standard backup cycle and are fully purged within 90 days. During that window the data is not used for any purpose and is retained only within the encrypted backup.

Cost, and what happens if we cannot help

There is no charge for a deletion request. If we are unable to identify you from the information provided, or if the law requires us to keep the data, we will explain why in writing and tell you what your options are. You may complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) at any time — details are on our privacy policy page.

Related policies

This page should be read together with our privacy policy, our cookie policy and our terms of service.