The operational procedure that implements Neuroscale’s contractual data-portability and post-termination data-return obligations under the Data Management Policy. It governs how a customer’s production data is extracted from Neuroscale systems, encrypted, transferred, verified, and ultimately deleted.

Scope

Applies to any export of customer-owned data from the Neuroscale production environment. It does not govern internal analytical extracts, which are handled under the Data Management Policy.

Triggers

TriggerNotes
Customer self-service request (“export-as-a-service”)Initiated by an authorized customer admin in-product.
Contract termination or non-renewalDefault obligation: return + delete within the window in the customer’s MSA / DPA (see “Retention after export” below).
Legal holdTriggers preservation extract; export is held under General Counsel direction and is not auto-deleted.
Data Subject Rights (DSR) request — access or portabilityForwarded to the customer (the controller) for individual-record exports; bulk exports follow this procedure.
Migration to a new tenant or environmentTreated as a customer-initiated export.

Roles

RoleResponsibility
CTOProcedure owner; approves any export of >1 TB or any export requiring a non-standard format.
Customer Success (CSM; today operationally: CTO — see Roles & Personnel alias map)Customer-facing point of contact; verifies requester authority; signs the receipt of delivery.
CISOApproves cryptographic controls, key handling, and BYOK arrangements; reviews any deviation.
Engineering on-callExecutes the extraction from production systems.
General CounselReviews exports tied to terminations, legal holds, or regulatory requests.

Intake

Customer-initiated exports (other than in-product self-service) are submitted via the Customer Data Export intake form, which files into the engineering Linear queue and triggers the verification steps below.

Authentication & authorization

Before any export job is initiated:
  1. The request must originate from an authorized customer administrator as named in the customer’s account or contract.
  2. The requester is verified via two channels: Rippling authentication on the customer-facing portal, plus a secondary out-of-band confirmation (a phone callback to the named contact on file, or a Docusigned export-authorization form for terminations).
  3. The verification record (timestamps, channel, person spoken to) is attached to the Linear ticket.

Extraction

  1. Engineering on-call opens an export task in Linear, linked to the customer’s account.
  2. The data is extracted from the primary production database — AWS RDS / Aurora for AWS-hosted workloads, Vultr-hosted Postgres for Vultr-hosted workloads — using read replicas where available to avoid load on the primary. Extraction tooling is the standard internal export job; ad-hoc SQL exports are not permitted.
  3. The extract is consolidated and staged in a dedicated, customer-scoped AWS S3 prefix encrypted with AWS KMS customer-managed keys (or the customer’s BYOK key — see below). AWS S3 is the canonical export-staging surface across both clouds; Vultr-resident customer data is moved into the AWS S3 staging area for consistent key custody, manifest generation, and pre-signed-URL delivery.
  4. Engineering generates a SHA-256 manifest of every object in the extract.

Formats

FormatUse
JSON LinesDefault for transactional and document-shaped data.
CSVTabular exports for analytics workflows.
ParquetLarge datasets, or where the receiving system is a data warehouse.
Customer-specific formatOn request, with CTO approval and a written scope statement.
A schema document (column names, types, semantic descriptions, and any redaction rules) accompanies every export.

Encryption

  • At rest (staging): AES-256 via AWS KMS. Each export uses a dedicated key.
  • In transit: TLS 1.3 only. Pre-signed S3 URLs use the AWS SigV4 scheme over HTTPS.
  • BYOK: If the customer has a Bring-Your-Own-Key arrangement, the export is encrypted under the customer’s KMS key (cross-account grant) before staging. Key handling follows the Cryptography Policy.
  • End-to-end: For high-sensitivity exports, the archive is additionally encrypted with a passphrase (PGP or zip-AES), with the passphrase delivered out-of-band.

Transfer mechanism

The transfer mechanism is the one specified in the customer’s DPA, or — if unspecified — selected by the CTO in consultation with the customer:
  • Pre-signed S3 URL (default). Time-limited, IP-scoped where feasible, single-use.
  • Customer-managed S3 bucket. Neuroscale assumes a customer-provided IAM role and writes directly to the customer’s bucket.
  • SFTP. Customer-hosted SFTP endpoint with key-based authentication. Used where the customer has a standing SFTP-only policy.

Verification

  • The customer is provided with the SHA-256 manifest at delivery.
  • The customer confirms successful download and hash match in writing (email or signed receipt). The signed Receipt of Delivery closes the ticket.
  • For terminations, the receipt also acknowledges the post-export deletion timeline below.

Retention after export

  • Staged extracts in Neuroscale-managed S3 are deleted within 30 days of the customer’s confirmed receipt, or earlier if the customer waives the retention.
  • Customer production data (the source data, not the export) is deleted within 60 days post-termination unless extended by the customer’s contract or by a legal hold. Deletion follows the Records Disposal & Certificates of Destruction Procedure.
  • Backups retaining the data are aged out per backup-lifecycle policy and are subject to cryptographic erase via key destruction.
  • See the Records Retention Schedule for full retention windows.

SLAs

TierTime-to-delivery (from verified request)
Standard10 business days.
Expedited (with contractual entitlement, or by exception with CTO approval)5 business days.
Large (>1 TB or non-standard format)Mutually agreed timeline, documented in the ticket and confirmed in writing with the customer.
Termination-driven exports are coordinated with the contract end date so that delivery and deletion fall within the contractual window.

Records

The following are retained for 6 years in the SharePoint customer-records library, indexed by customer account:
  • The Linear ticket (request, approvals, extraction commands, hashes).
  • Authentication & authorization evidence (callback notes, signed authorization).
  • The SHA-256 manifest.
  • The signed Receipt of Delivery.
  • Deletion confirmations (staging deletion, source deletion, backup-erase certifications where applicable).

Cross-references

Version history

VersionDateDescriptionAuthorApproved by
1.0May 8, 2026Initial versionCameron WolfeIshan Jadhwani