Data Security / Retention – iSurvey News and Help

Deleted data cannot be restored

Adam Warren — Mon, 14 Aug 2017 10:36:37 +0000

We have had a couple of ServiceLine requests recently asking for data that had accidentally been deleted to be restored, and unfortunately that is not possible – deleted data is gone for ever.

The technical team say that “iSurvey doesn’t do ‘soft deletes’ (marking records as deleted), so once the user hits delete, the data is deleted.”

iSurvey is backed up daily, but that is so we can restore the whole system in case of a catastrophic failure – for example if the server was hacked. Note that all data and survey edits since that backup was made would be lost.

So the golden rule is ALWAYS download a copy of the data before deleting any records.

If you are checking iSurvey regularly (maybe once each day) to look at any new responses to your survey, I would recommend downloading the data as part of that check. It never hurt to have too many backups, provided you store that data securely.

Is my survey data backed up?

admin — Tue, 03 May 2011 09:52:01 +0000

All survey information as well as participant responses is backed up daily and archived for 90 days. This is in-line with iSolutions data retention policy and they reserve the right to reduce the retention period at any time.

Note that it is not possible to recover or restore data that you delete, so ALWAYS download a copy of your data before manually deleting participants’ data.

It should be noted that iSurvey data is only ever deleted by a survey editor i.e. you. Any data collected via iSurvey can be stored indefinitely on the server. However we highly recommend downloading your dataset as a CSV file for offline storage. This will give you peace of mind, but you can never have too many backups of your research data!

How secure is data collected via iSurvey?

admin — Tue, 03 May 2011 09:45:05 +0000

All data collected via iSurvey is done via Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) which encrypts the data before sending it and storing it in the database.

The database server itself is kept in the iSolutions server room which is one of the most secure areas on Highfield Campus.

A number of security checks are conducted on the current logged in user to check permissions *before* any data is downloaded or displayed on the page.

It is important to note that anyone you give Editorial access to your survey will be able to view and download all participant information and responses collected for that survey.