What happens to uploaded ID documents?

Two kinds of document can be uploaded on a requester's tracking page, and they are treated very differently on purpose.

Identity documents: deleted at verification

When a requester uploads photo ID and a member of your team clicks Verify identity, the identity documents are permanently deleted, automatically, at that moment. What remains is the audit record: identity was verified, by whom, and when.

This is deliberate. A folder of customer passports is a liability with no upside:

• You needed the document only to make the verification decision. Once made, the record of the decision is the evidence, not the passport.
• If your systems were ever breached, there are no ID documents to lose.
• You never have to remember to clean them up. The deletion is itself written to the audit trail.

Authority documents: kept

Proof-of-authority documents (a signed letter or power of attorney from an agent acting on someone's behalf) are kept with the request. They are your legal evidence that disclosing one person's data to another person was lawful. Deleting those would delete your defence.

They're removed later like everything else, when the closed request passes your retention period and is anonymised.

In short

Document	After verification	Why
Identity (passport, licence)	Deleted immediately	The verification record is the evidence
Authority (agent's proof)	Kept until retention cleanup	It is the evidence