The file exists because somebody else gave them your address, and it grows evidence you never posed for: doorstep photographs, signatures, where the parcel was left. Address histories outlive the deliveries, and read in order they map where you have lived.
Address and shipment records. Worth listing.
Shipment and customs records are kept for years under trade rules.
Sending or receiving needs a name and address; ID for high-value or customs.
Industry profile reviewed 23 August 2026. Also machine-readable via the free API.
A delivery file says where you live, when somebody was home, and where a parcel goes when nobody is. It names the neighbour who takes them in, who never signed up to anything.
The file exists because somebody else gave them your address
Almost nobody chooses a courier. A shop picks one, hands over your name, address, phone and usually your email, and a file opens that you never opened. There is no account to close and no relationship to end, and the carrier still holds a copy of its own.
A photograph of your door, kept as evidence
Doorstep photographs, signatures and a note of where a parcel was left are gathered as proof against a dispute that will most likely never happen. That makes an image of your home and who answered a commercial record, held for as long as the carrier judges a claim is possible.
An address list is a map of your moves
Delivery records outlive the deliveries. Every address you shipped to or from stays on file, and read in order that is a history of where you have lived and who you send things to. Anything that crossed a border adds customs paperwork with a legal hold of its own, naming you, the contents and the value.
Worked out from the industry, not from any one company. What you actually handed over is yours to record.
Built only from what this kind of service actually collects. A dimension that the data does not support is not listed.
Delivery addresses map where you and your contacts are.
Two kinds of hold. LAW SETS IT: a statute makes them keep it. THEY SET IT: a ground the company grants itself.
Customs law makes them keep the declarations naming who sent a shipment and who received it.
Tax and company law makes them keep billing and payment records.
They can keep records to defend a live or possible legal claim.
An address confirmed by a delivered parcel is worth more than one typed into a form, which is why postal and delivery operators sell address validation and change-of-address products. Your moves are the part with commercial value, not your parcels.
Address and shipment data is shared across partners.
Limited personal-data training use.
Anonymised is their word. A shipment carries sender and recipient by name and address, which single people out on their own.
Fifteen demographic attributes re-identify 99.98% of Americans in a released dataset (Rocher, Hendrickx and de Montjoye, Nature Communications, 2019); date of birth, postcode, and sex alone did it for most people in the first study of the problem (Sweeney, 2000).
Four time-and-place points single out 95% of people in mobility data (de Montjoye et al., Scientific Reports, 2013).
Four card transactions identify 90% of people in payment data (de Montjoye et al., Science, 2015).
THE STUDIES Estimating the success of re-identifications in incomplete datasets using generative models (Nature Communications 10, 3069, 2019)·Simple Demographics Often Identify People Uniquely (Carnegie Mellon University, Data Privacy Working Paper 3, 2000)·Unique in the Crowd: The privacy bounds of human mobility (Scientific Reports 3, 1376, 2013)·Unique in the shopping mall: On the reidentifiability of credit card metadata (Science 347 (6221), 2015)
Clauses that recur across this industry, and what each one actually permits.
“to provide and improve our services”
The catch-all purpose. Analytics, profiling, personalisation, and increasingly AI training can all ride under it. When they want to do something new with your data, this sentence usually already covers it.
THE MOVE An objection draws the line: use your data to run the service, not to improve, target, or train on it.
“we do not sell your personal information”
Often technically true, and still misleading. It usually means no cash changes hands. Data can still flow to ad networks, analytics firms, and partners: on their definition, sharing is not selling.
THE MOVE Flip the do-not-sell switch where one exists. The written objection on top of it goes on your record.
“service providers, partners, and affiliates”
How data leaves the building with no name attached. Recipients are listed by what they do, never who they are. You cannot send a request to a company you cannot name, which is the point.
THE MOVE An access request can ask for the recipients by name, not just the categories. UK and EU law put that choice with you. The reply, or the silence, goes on your record.
“aggregated or de-identified information”
Stripping the name does not strip the pattern, and the pattern often still points at you. Policies grant themselves free, indefinite use of this data because in their telling it is no longer about you.
THE MOVE If a deletion comes back as 'anonymised', keep the reply. It is their claim, not a fact you can check.
“retained as long as necessary, or as required by law”
They can keep it for: legal duties, tax rules, fraud prevention, possible lawsuits, their own business reasons. None of them carries a firm end date. Deletion becomes a negotiation, not an event.
THE MOVE Which reasons apply to you, and how long each runs, is a request of its own. Their reply goes on your record.
“you grant us a licence to use your content”
A contract term, not a data setting, so a privacy request cannot undo it. The careful version ends with your account. The broad version can be passed on, never expires, and survives deletion.
THE MOVE Whether the licence ends with the account is written in their terms, not yours. Closing the account goes on your record.
“we handle your information on behalf of the retailer who arranged your delivery”
The carrier casts itself as acting for the shop, which lets it point you back there. It still chose what to collect at the door, what to photograph and how long to keep it, and it answers for those.
THE MOVE The shop and the carrier each hold a copy, and the same request works on both. Each reply goes on your record.
“we retain proof of delivery, including photographs and signatures, to resolve disputes”
An image of your property and a record of who answered the door, kept against the possibility of a claim. The picture is of a place rather than an account, so nothing you close removes it.
THE MOVE An access request covers the images, signatures and delivery notes held against your address. Their reply goes on your record.
“left in a safe place or with a neighbour”
Your standing instructions become a record of your habits, and the neighbour who signs for a parcel is written into a file about your delivery. They agreed to nothing and are not told.
THE MOVE Who accepted a parcel is part of the delivery record, and an access request reaches it. Their reply goes on your record.
Their own policy is the one that binds them. Pin it down with a request, and keep the reply. Start your record →