Built for the world
as it is.
DÆTRAX is a realistic window into how the data economy works: the moments of a normal life that make your data stick, where it travels, and the three free moves you can make.
How your data sticks, where it moves, and the three free moves you can make
A normal life hands data over.
Across more scenarios than you would list.
A job application, a purchase, an identity check, a tenancy reference, a dating profile, a recorded interview, and more. Each one is a company that now holds something of yours.
Step through it.
The two-handed regulator.
One hand gives you rights, and the other lets them keep your data anyway.
Compliance rules treat every customer as a possible fraud, tax or safety case, so a company keeps data on those grounds whether you have done anything or not. The privacy regulator gives you rights. The financial regulator, the courts and the platform's own safety rules give the company duties to keep things. Both sides are enforced, and the company sits between them and tells you what it had to keep.
No service can make those carve-outs go away. They override a removal service's request the same way they override yours. What you can have is their answer, in writing. Only you know where your data went and what you handed over.
What you can ask for.
- See what they hold
- Limit how they use it
- Delete what they don't need to keep
- Ask what remains after you leave
Why they keep it anyway.
- Legitimate interest, the catch-all
- Kept "as long as necessary", with no end date
- Fraud and criminal investigation
- Tax, ID checks and accounting
- Safety, abuse and moderation logs
- Legal holds and do-not-contact lists
What the moment collects, the file keeps.
The heaviest collection happens at moments you could not refuse: proving who you are, interviewing for a job, verifying your age.
Proving your age or identity takes a document scan, a selfie and often a liveness video, and the copies often stay after the check is done. Identity data is reused in fraud systems, shared databases and verification providers you never dealt with directly. Ask the company what it still holds.
The Fine Print · Identity verificationA video interview collects your face, your voice, your setting and an hour of how you think under pressure. 40% of the video-interview policies we read never say whether AI analyses the recording, and stated retention runs from eight weeks to two years. An access request asks what the policy leaves out.
From the blog · You proved you were realClosing an account doesn't close the file. Companies keep what defends them: the ban you disputed, the messages that led to it, and the device and network identifiers that stop you coming back.
When a deletion request is answered with "we will anonymise it instead", the data is kept with the obvious identifiers stripped, and AI can match records like that back to you in seconds. The ledger notes that they replied; their promise that it can't be undone stays in your inbox, in their words.
From the blog · Anonymous to a human, not to meWhy keep a record.
A company tells you it deleted your data. Copies sit in backups, suppression lists, fraud systems and training sets. Then one day something resurfaces:
- A breach years later.
- A message from a partner you have never heard of.
- A marketing email after you cancelled.
- A regulator complaint that needs evidence.
Your record shows what you asked each company and when, and whether it answered.
Your contact details move through broker markets. That is where the cold calls, the cold emails and the personalised ads from companies you have never spoken to come from. When a company you never signed up to contacts you, you can ask where it got your data, who else has it, and on what grounds.
The right exists in most modern data-protection law, and is clearest in the UK, the EU, California, Brazil and Canada. DÆTRAX helps you write the letter, so you never have to look up a statute.
You can't see inside a company's systems. When it writes back that your data is deleted, that's a claim, and nobody outside the company can check it. Keep the reply in your inbox; DÆTRAX keeps track of when you asked and whether they answered.
And remember, what they say is a claim.
What it does, and what it won't.
A plain-English letter you can edit, asking what they hold, what they kept and for how long. You copy it into your own email and send it.
Mark whether they replied or stayed silent past the deadline, and the record keeps it even if the email is gone.
Every company you've added, what you asked and when, and whether they answered, in one place.
Once a month on Pro: what you logged, what is still open, and which deadlines are coming up.
Send anything for you.
The right is yours, and a request from your own inbox carries more weight than an automated one. We help you write the words and you press send.
Promise deletion.
We record what you asked and whether they answered. Your data can't be wiped from the economy; the carve-outs above say why.
Pretend to be your lawyer.
The company already knows what law applies to you. Plain English asking for a written answer gets a useful reply.
Companies keep a file on you.
Keep one on them.