The following data elements are encrypted and stored 3 months in an Experian Data Center and for 1 year in Microsoft Azure for troubleshooting, internal testing, caching and product quality improvement purposes:
Email address
Email domain
Transaction start/end time
Validation result
IP address of caller
For data quality insights reporting purposes: We store 100% anonymised metadata related to searches across all services indefinitely.
Regional data transfer
The API gateway is deployed to the US, UK and Australia. Depending on the origin, requests are routed to the nearest data center.
In the event of a data center failure, requests will be routed to the nearest healthy data center.
Components of the Email Validation system are deployed in the US, Europe and Hong Kong, and the email address might traverse one or more of these regions.
SMTP check
Email validation involves an SMTP check which entails making a query to the email server responsible for the associated domain with the email address in question. These email servers, which are not under Experian control, could reside in one or more countries not listed here.