1. Hosted in an EU-region cloud
Pileform stores and processes documents in an EU-region cloud. That is a region hint, not a pin to a specific legal jurisdiction. Data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest (AES-256). The specific hosting provider isn't named publicly, by policy, though full sub-processor detail, including each provider's role, location, and transfer safeguards, is published in our Data Processing Agreement.
2. Retention, matched to tax law
Accounting records need to survive as long as the law that governs them, so retention is configurable and country-aware rather than a single fixed number. The system-wide default is 7 years, comfortably beyond the 6-year minimum required in Cyprus, with presets by country: Cyprus, the UK, Ireland, Malta, Spain, and Greece at 6 years, the Netherlands at 7, and Germany, France, Italy, and Lebanon at 10, so each jurisdiction's own statute is always available as a preset.
Since 1 January 2026, Cyprus's 6-year period runs from the tax-return submission deadline rather than the tax-year end, another reason the 7-year default leaves headroom.
You can change your account's retention period, or request early deletion of an individual job, from Settings → Data & exports.
3. GDPR, export, and AI processing
Pileform is GDPR-compliant: you can export your data or request its erasure at any time, handled as a soft-delete followed by a scheduled purge. AI inference, the OCR and categorisation steps, runs via vetted third-party providers under contract, and they are contractually prohibited from training on your content; your documents are never used to train any model.
For the full technical detail, including encryption, access controls, and breach response, see data security.
Quick answers
In an EU-region cloud. That is a region hint, not a pin to a specific legal jurisdiction. Uploads are staged briefly, then results are archived for your configured retention period. The specific hosting provider isn't named publicly, but full sub-processor detail is published in the Data Processing Agreement.
By default, 7 years, beyond the 6-year minimum required in Cyprus, with country presets ranging from 6 to 10 years depending on the applicable tax-record statute: Cyprus, the UK, Ireland, Malta, Spain, and Greece at 6 years; the Netherlands at 7; Germany, France, Italy, and Lebanon at 10. You can change this from Settings → Data & exports.
Yes. You can request early deletion of any individual job from Settings → Data & exports, handled as a soft-delete followed by a scheduled purge.
No. AI inference runs via vetted third-party providers under contract, and they are contractually prohibited from training on your content.
Still stuck? Email contact@pileform.com and a person replies within one business day.