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Data retention schedule

The pensions dashboards standards impose obligations on pension providers and schemes to generate and persist data. The data retention schedule sets out how long we require parties to retain data.

It also includes retention periods that are not determined by the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) but are set out in legislation.

The pensions dashboards ecosystem business audit retention requirement is 6 years for all interactions. Operational retention periods are detailed below.

IT Health Check results and remediation plans

Source of requirement: PDP standards

Processed by: qualifying pensions dashboards service, pensions providers and schemes

Operational retention period: 2 years

Parties must have previous IT Health Check results and remediation plan (if relevant) as well as the current IT Health Check results to be able to evidence that any defects identified at previous IT Health Check have been addressed by the subsequent test.

Find data

Source of requirement: regulations/rules

Processed by: pension providers and schemes

Operational retention period: transient

Find data are received from the MaPS central digital architecture (the pension finder service) by pension providers and schemes for the purpose of completing matching (a legal obligation). In the event of no match being made against a find request received (including when a possible match is resolved not to be a match, or is not resolved), the find data should be deleted – or, alternatively, pension providers and schemes may investigate whether they can store a hash of some of the details used in the search so that when a subsequent search is initiated by the same user within a given period, a repeat search against a known no match is not needed. (Pension providers and schemes will need to be satisfied as to their own (separate) legal basis for any processing of the find data obtained via the MaPS central digital architecture other than to comply with the legal obligation to complete matching in response to find requests).

Consent tokens

Source of requirement: PDP standards

Processed by: pension providers and schemes

Operational retention period: transient

Consent tokens are issued with find requests for the purpose of instructing pension providers and schemes to initiate matching.

Pension identifiers: possible matches

Source of requirement: regulations/rules

Processed by: pension providers and schemes

Operational retention period: persisted at the pension provider or scheme for 30 days

If the individual does not make contact within 30 days, or if the individual does make contact but the pension provide or scheme is unable to resolve the possible match as a match made within such time as may be reasonably allowed by the provider or scheme, the legislation requires de-registration of the pension identifier with MaPS and deletion of the find request.

Pension identifiers: matches made

Source of requirement: regulations/rules

Processed by: pension providers and schemes

Operational retention period: pension providers and schemes are required by the legislation to create pension identifiers in accordance with PDP technical standards for a positive match. The legislation also sets out requirements in respect of de-registration where a match is made by the member ceases to be a relevant member.

Complaints information: records of volumes, nature and outcome

Source of requirement: PDP standards

Processed by: QPDS, pension providers and schemes

Operational retention period: 6 years

View data

Source of requirement: regulations/rules

Processed by: QPDS

Operational retention period: transient

View data may only be cached by dashboards temporarily, for the purpose of display to the user in a single session