What we keep and what we destroy

Uploaded document, sent

Destroyed 24 hours after the transmission reaches a final result

Uploaded document, abandoned

Expires 2 hours after upload, destroyed by the next hourly sweep

Converted fax pages

Destroyed on the same schedule as the document they came from

Transmission record, in our database

Retained indefinitely, unless you ask us to delete it

Transmission record, as the PDF you download

Not retained by us at all. It is built at the moment you download it, and the copy in your files is yours

Cover sheet note

Destroyed with the document it introduced

Document hashes

Retained with the record

Terms accepted, and the address the fax was submitted from

Retained with the record. Kept in our database only and not printed on the record we send you

Deletion audit entries

Retained indefinitely, except for a record you ask us to delete — its entries go with it

Payment records

Held by Stripe under their retention terms; we store the transaction reference, the amount, and whether it was authorized, captured or released

A fax received on the shared test number is not a transmission record and is kept on its own schedule. The person it concerns is whoever sent it, who is often not a customer.

Received fax pages

Downloaded only if a visitor is waiting for one. Destroyed 30 minutes after arrival, with a deletion audit entry; an hourly sweep removes any the timer missed

Fax received with nobody waiting

Never downloaded, so there is no document to keep. Only the call is recorded

Caller ID, and the carrier's raw message about the call

Removed 30 days after arrival, by the next hourly sweep

Number a visitor typed to start a test

Deleted within 26 hours of being typed, whether or not a fax matched it

Transmission facts of the call: page count, duration, whether it was cut off, the document hash

Retained indefinitely, as the evidence of how reliably the line works. They contain no part of any document and no number

The destination number, your email address, any sender or recipient name you supplied, the filename of each document you sent, the page count, submission and completion timestamps, the final result, the fax network and its transaction ID, the receiving station identifier where the network reports one, the recipient organization if you gave one, the attempt history including the fax network’s own unedited message about each call, the click identifier if you arrived from one of our ads, and the SHA-256 hashes of each file as we received it and of the assembled fax pages. It also records the version of the terms you accepted and the internet address our hosting provider reported for that request — the two things that show, if a payment is ever disputed, that the fax was sent on purpose and under which terms. Neither is printed on the record we send you.

Two fields here can describe what you sent: the note you put on a cover sheet, which we destroy with the document, and the filename, which stays on the record. If your filename says something you would rather we did not keep, rename the file before you upload it, or write to us afterwards and we will clear it from the record.

Once the schedule above has run, the record we hold contains no part of any document.

The record is what you may need months later, and it is the part of this service you paid for as much as the transmission. Holding your tax return or your medical form indefinitely to make that record more useful is not a trade we are willing to make, so we destroy the material on the schedule above and keep only the evidence.

You keep your original files, but the converted fax pages — the exact black-and-white pages we prepared for the receiving machine, which are not the same artifact as your originals — exist only here, and after 24 hours they exist nowhere. So the email we send when the transmission settles links a download that has them in it. Take it inside the window if those pages matter to you; afterwards the hashes on the record are the only thing tying a file to the transmission. A PDF reaches us unchanged, so the hash on the record matches your copy; a photograph is shrunk on your device before it is uploaded, so its hash is of the shrunk file.

Nothing is attached to that email, and the reason is this policy. Our email provider keeps attachment content on their side for as long as they keep it, so attaching the pages would leave a copy with a processor on a schedule this page does not govern and we could not state.

Each object destroyed on the schedule above writes an audit entry recording the storage path, which artifact it was, its size and its hash. A sweep runs hourly and removes anything the primary timer missed on a transmission that reached a final result, and a fax that was accepted and never dialed raises an alert. A document you take back out of the set yourself is destroyed straight away, ahead of the schedule, and writes the same entry. A file that reached our storage and whose record could not then be written is removed and noted in a separate log that holds its path, its size and the time it was removed, and no hash.

If a law, a court, or a legally valid demand requires us to preserve something, we keep the transmission record for as long as we are required to. The documents themselves are destroyed on the schedule above and we have no way to hold them past it, so a demand that arrives after the window reaches a record with no document in it. We will tell you unless we are prohibited from telling you, or telling you would defeat a law-enforcement preservation request.

Write to support@faxmydoc.com with the record ID. We will delete it and confirm, unless a legal hold of the kind above requires us to keep it — in which case we will say so and delete it when the hold ends. Deletion is irreversible, and it takes the deletion audit entries with it. If you may need the record, download it first.

If this schedule changes, the new schedule applies to documents uploaded after the change.

Goforth Digital Ventures LLC, Dallas, Texas.