Overview
You can ask for your Institute Console account and personal data to be deleted, whether or not you still have the app installed. Parents and guardians can also ask for a linked child's record to be deleted. Institute Console is operated by DEXDEVS (SMC-PRIVATE) LIMITED for the Institutes that use it.
Because your Institute is responsible for its records, the Institute reviews each request. Deletion is carried out by anonymisation: your account is closed and your personal details are permanently removed, while records the Institute must legally keep stay in place without your identity attached.
Request deletion in the app
- Open the Institute Console app and sign in.
- Go to Settings, then Privacy & data. The screen is titled Data & account deletion.
- Choose whose data to delete: your own account, or a child linked to your account.
- Add a reason if you wish, and submit the request.
You can follow the status of your request on the same screen and withdraw it there until it is carried out. On the web app, the same option is under your Profile, in the Data & account deletion section.
Request deletion without the app
Email privacy@instituteconsole.com from the email address registered on your account, or ask your Institute's office directly. Include:
- your full name and the name of your Institute;
- whether you want your own account deleted, or a child's record (give the child's name and class); and
- the phone number or email address registered with the Institute, so the request can be matched to your account.
We may ask you to confirm your identity before we act. We will pass the request to your Institute and track it through the same process as an in-app request.
What happens next
- Review. Your Institute reviews the request. It can approve it, or reject it with a reason, for example if it cannot verify that you are entitled to ask, or if the law requires it to keep the data.
- Grace period. When a request is approved, deletion is scheduled after a grace period of 7 days by default. An Institute may set a different period of up to 90 days. During this time you or the Institute can still cancel, and the app shows the date deletion will run.
- Deletion. When the grace period ends, the deletion runs automatically within about an hour. It cannot be undone.
We aim to complete every request within 30 days of receiving it, as data protection law requires, unless it is rejected or withdrawn. Only one open request can exist for the same person at a time.
What is deleted
- Your sign-in is closed: your password is removed, active sessions are ended, and biometric unlock and push-notification registrations for your devices are revoked.
- Personal details are erased from the account and from the student, guardian or staff record: names, CNIC, phone numbers, email addresses, home addresses, date of birth, photographs, and other identifying fields.
- The text of notifications you received, and free-text notes and comments written about the person in requests and approvals, is cleared.
- Linked files that identify the person, such as uploaded photographs and scanned documents held for admissions enquiries, are removed.
What is kept, and why
Some records must be kept even after deletion. They are kept without your identity attached, so they can no longer be linked to you:
- Fee, payment and accounting records (invoices, challans, receipts, ledger entries). These are financial records the Institute must keep for statutory and audit purposes, and deleting them would make its accounts incorrect.
- Payroll and payslip records for staff, for the same reason.
- Enrolment, attendance and academic history needed for the Institute's statutory records, with the student's identity removed.
- The audit log. This is an append-only, tamper-evident record of who changed what in Institute Console. It is kept permanently, and personal details in it are masked. A record that a deletion request was made and carried out is also kept, so that we can prove the request was honoured.
- Backups. Copies of data in encrypted backups are not edited. They are replaced on a rolling schedule, and long-term archive copies are retained for disaster recovery only, with access restricted.
How long the Institute keeps its de-identified records is set by the Institute and the laws that apply to it.
Deleting only some data
If you want to correct information, or stop receiving certain notifications, rather than delete your account, contact your Institute or change your notification settings in the app. You can also uninstall the app at any time; uninstalling removes the data stored on your device but does not delete your account.
Contact
- Deletion and privacy requests: privacy@instituteconsole.com
- Data protection contact: dpo@instituteconsole.com
- Help with the app: support@instituteconsole.com
For more about how we handle personal data, read our Privacy Policy.