Vendor due diligence trigger

DPA and data retention questionnaire template

When a buyer asks about a DPA, data retention, deletion requests, backup retention, subprocessors, or restricted data, the safest prep step is to separate current documented practice from contract terms that need review.

Question groups to prepare

Who can review or approve a buyer data processing agreement.
Retention periods by data category, product workflow, or account state.
Deletion request intake, owner, expected handling path, and backup caveats.
Subprocessor and vendor terms, including which rows are current, unavailable, or review-needed.
Restricted-data boundaries for medical, financial, child, privileged, regulated, confidential, or secret data.
Evidence source, owner, and last-reviewed date for each answer.

Safe answer pattern

Use factual operational notes for documentation questions and route contract terms to the right reviewer. If a retention period, deletion workflow, backup behavior, DPA status, or vendor term has not been confirmed, mark it as review-needed instead of answering from memory.

Do not say a DPA is accepted, a deletion timeline is guaranteed, every vendor has reviewed terms, or restricted data is allowed unless the authorized owner has verified that exact point.

Download the starter CSV

The starter CSV gives six cautious rows for DPA review, retention period, deletion request, subprocessor DPA flow, backup retention, and restricted-data questions.

Download DPA and retention starter CSV

Need the full packet?

The Growth Procurement Stack includes security questionnaire, subprocessor, AI vendor, evidence, portal intake, and buyer-reply templates so retention and DPA-related answers connect to the rest of the review packet.

See Growth Stack Open due-diligence checklist

Scope limit

This guide and CSV are documentation starters. They are not legal advice, privacy advice, cybersecurity advice, procurement advice, contract advice, compliance advice, DPA review, data-processing agreement approval, permission to process restricted data, GDPR compliance, HIPAA compliance, compliance certification, audit readiness, or a guarantee of buyer approval, security approval, procurement approval, client approval, regulatory approval, pilot conversion, revenue, profit, savings, or timeline reduction.