What if I need the personal details after four months for handling a claim?

Sometimes a customer asks for clarification about a delivery after a number of months. The trip ID, the stop location and information about company locations and hubs simply remain in the platform. Are you looking for the exact name or telephone number of the driver or the consumer, for example for reaching out for more information? Look for this in your own source system, such as your transport management system (TMS).

Do you want to do a semi-annual evaluation of your routes?

After six months we remove the detailed GPS breadcrumbs from the Control Tower. Fortunately, this is no problem for your trend analyses! Use our Transport Performance Monitor for this. This already works with anonymised data and gives you exactly the insights you look for. Also, all realised trip times and stop completions simply remain available until we permanently delete them after the longer retention period of two years.

We use trip history and photos for more than six months. What now?

We keep this information for the current, longer retention period of two years.

We sometimes use the chat as proof for made agreements.

After six months the chat messages disappear. Here we choose a balance between the privacy of the people involved, such as drivers, trip supervisors and planning and support employees, and the business recording of important deviations and agreements (for example permission to deviate from a route). If you want to keep messages of specific trips longer, record them directly in your own primary system, such as a note with the order in your TMS. Use the chat in Simacan for what it is meant for: for fast, operational coordination around the trip! This way you never lose the context afterwards.

Why does this take effect on Tuesday 7 April?

Tuesday 7 April perhaps sounds a bit random, but we definitely thought about it. First of all, we gladly give you the time to properly understand this change and communicate it internally. We happily take the time to answer questions before this starts.

When we checked the calendar a month ahead, we initially landed on 1 April, but that date always feels a bit awkward. Easter also falls on the first weekend of April, and we know how busy this period is for you. That is why we introduce this change on the Tuesday after Easter.

I am unable to export data before this change takes effect!

We hear you! We expect to be able to help you out. Contact our support department, and we gladly explore the options for you.

Does Simacan really not keep data longer than the retention periods?

Yes, we do, specifically in the backups of our systems. We securely record all information from the platform in backups, and we keep these for a maximum of three months. We strictly shield these backups, so no one accesses them during normal operations. Only selected Simacan employees retrieve this data in exceptional situations. This means the effective retention period, as we state in the announcement and the data processing agreement, is three months longer in practice. With this, we greatly reduce the risk of leaks or unauthorised access.

Do my current agreements still match reality?

Existing agreements indeed no longer exactly match practice. Our new way of working aligns better with current privacy legislation and people's expectations. Therefore, we have an update of our data processing agreement available, which matches these new retention periods. Contact us for the most recent agreement!

I can still trace customer addresses or find out where a delivery driver went based on the GPS data, why do these retention periods differ?

Well spotted! We indeed delete customer address data after three months, and GPS data after six months, even though we consider a GPS location as personal data as well. This creates an important privacy difference: in the meantime, you no longer search for specific customers based on a name, postal code or street. Our system does not support searching by GPS location. You also no longer see which driver drove a specific trip, unless you derive this from external sources. This greatly reduces the privacy risk. This way, you can use GPS positions (and chat messages) for three extra months to check correct stop completions, handle financial claims or process damage reports, for example.

Do locations and approach routes of my business addresses also disappear with this?

No, we do not clean up managed locations. We retain all addresses you manage via 'Masterdata', including drawn geofences and approach routes, until the end of our service. This also includes names and any telephone numbers and email addresses of these locations. We therefore perhaps keep some personal data longer. We estimate this data does not contain personal names, addresses, telephone numbers or email addresses. In exceptional cases, it concerns a sole proprietorship, for example, where business data overlaps with personal data. If you want to delete data here, you simply do this yourself in 'Masterdata'.