Data deletion
How to ask us to delete your data — whether you are one of our clients, someone on a client's team, or a customer who messaged a business that uses Desko AI.
On this page
1. The short version
Email privacy@deskoai.com from the address associated with your account, or message us on WhatsApp, and tell us what you want deleted. We will confirm within 5 working days and complete the deletion within 30 days. There is no charge for a reasonable request.
If you would rather not email, message +254 716 960 098 and say you are making a deletion request. We may need to verify your identity before we act, so that nobody can delete someone else's data.
2. If you are a Desko AI client
You can ask us to delete your entire workspace, or part of it — a particular contact, a conversation, a campaign list, or an uploaded file.
Before we delete a whole workspace we will offer you an export of your conversations and contacts, because deletion cannot be undone. If you would rather leave without an export, tell us and we will proceed.
Deleting your Desko AI workspace does not delete your WhatsApp Business Account or your number. We hand control of the WhatsApp Business Account back to you, disconnect the service, and your number carries on working in the WhatsApp Business app exactly as before.
3. If you are on a client's team
If you are an agent or admin in someone else's workspace, you can ask us to delete your own user account — your name, email, login details and activity record.
We cannot delete the workspace's customer conversations at your request, because those belong to the business that employs you, not to you. Ask the workspace owner for that, or see section 4 below if you are writing as a customer rather than as a team member.
4. If you messaged a business that uses Desko AI
This is the important distinction. When you message a business on WhatsApp and that business uses Desko AI, the business is the data controller and we are its data processor. The conversation is theirs. We hold it on their behalf.
That means two routes are open to you:
- Ask the business directly. They control the record and can delete it. This is usually fastest.
- Ask us. Email privacy@deskoai.com with the business name and the phone number you messaged from. We will forward your request to that business as the controller, tell you that we have done so, and delete what we hold at platform level where we are permitted to act without their instruction.
We will not ignore a request because it came to us rather than to our client. If the business does not respond to you, tell us and we will follow up with them. You can also complain to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner — the details are in section 8 below.
5. What gets deleted
Depending on what you ask for, deletion covers:
- Messages, media metadata and conversation history we hold.
- Contact records, tags, notes and follow-up entries.
- Campaign lists and the reports built from them.
- Account and profile details, roles and invitations.
- Conversation context stored for the AI features.
Deleted data is removed from our live systems. Encrypted backups are purged on their normal rotation, so a copy may persist in backup for a limited period before it is overwritten. Backups are not used to restore deleted records.
Message data that has already passed through Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform is also held by Meta under its own terms. Deleting data here does not delete Meta's copy; that is governed by Meta's policies, not ours.
6. What we have to keep, and why
Two things survive a deletion request, because the law requires it:
- Invoices and tax records — kept for 7 years, as Kenyan tax and company law require. These contain billing details, not conversation content.
- Records needed for a legal claim — where we need them to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim, and only for as long as that is true.
We will tell you if either applies to your request, and what we are keeping.
7. How long it takes
- Within 5 working days — we acknowledge your request and confirm what it covers.
- Within 30 days — deletion is complete and we confirm in writing. This is the timeframe set by the Data Protection Act, 2019.
- Backups — purged on their normal cycle after that.
If a request is unusually complex and we need longer, we will tell you before the 30 days is up and explain why.
8. Contact
Desko AI Limited
Uniafric House, Koinange Street, Nairobi, Kenya
Deletion requests: privacy@deskoai.com
General: info@deskoai.com
WhatsApp: +254 716 960 098
See also our privacy policy and terms of service.