Steam keeps your personal data only as long as needed for the stated purpose or to meet legal requirements, using a proportionality assessment to set retention periods.
This analysis describes what Steam's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
This provision establishes Steam's operational framework for data lifecycle management, defining the criteria by which the entity determines when personal data should be deleted or anonymized rather than maintained indefinitely.
Interpretive note: The policy provides retention criteria rather than specific retention periods, meaning the actual duration of data storage for key categories such as payment data and game statistics cannot be determined from the policy text alone.
Valve applies a factors-based retention assessment rather than fixed retention periods for most personal data categories, which means the duration your game statistics, account data, and payment information are held is determined by Valve's internal policies that are not publicly disclosed in this document.
How other platforms handle this
We store information until it is no longer necessary to provide our services and WhatsApp Products, or until your account is deleted or becomes inactive, whichever comes first. This is a case-by-case determination that depends on things like the nature of the information, why it is collected and pro...
You may request deletion of your account at any time. When you request account deletion, we will delete or anonymize your personal information unless we are required to retain it by law, or unless we need to retain it for legitimate business purposes such as resolving disputes, enforcing our agreeme...
We'll retain your Personal Data for only as long as we need in order to provide our Services to you, or for other legitimate business purposes such as resolving disputes, safety and security reasons, or complying with our legal obligations. How long we retain Personal Data will depend on a number of...
Monitoring
Steam has changed this document before.
Receive same-day alerts, structured change summaries, and monitoring for up to 10 platforms.
"We will only store your information as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose it was collected for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.— Excerpt from Steam's Steam Privacy Policy
(1) REGULATORY LANDSCAPE: GDPR Article 5(1)(e) establishes the storage limitation principle, requiring that personal data be kept no longer than necessary for the specified purpose. Specific retention periods are not mandated by GDPR, but controllers must be able to justify retention duration. The UK ICO's retention guidance and the CCPA's data minimization principles also apply. (2) GOVERNANCE EXPOSURE: Medium. The absence of disclosed retention periods for specific data categories such as payment data, game statistics, and behavioral tracking data makes independent compliance verification difficult. Regulators may require documentation of retention schedules during audits. (3) JURISDICTION FLAGS: EU and UK supervisory authorities expect documented retention schedules as part of Records of Processing Activities (RoPA) under GDPR Article 30. California's CPRA requires disclosure of retention periods or criteria in privacy notices, which this policy addresses only at a general level. (4) CONTRACT AND VENDOR IMPLICATIONS: Retention policies should be reflected in data processing agreements with third-party developers who receive Steam user data. If those parties have independent retention periods, data subject deletion requests may not be fully honored. (5) COMPLIANCE CONSIDERATIONS: Legal teams should confirm that Valve maintains an internal retention schedule document that specifies periods by data category, aligned with business and legal requirements. CPRA-specific disclosure obligations regarding retention criteria should be reviewed for adequacy given the high-level nature of the policy's retention language.
Full compliance analysis
Regulatory citations, enforcement risk, and due diligence action items.
Free: track 1 platform + weekly digest. Watcher: 10 platforms + same-day alerts. No credit card required.
Professional Governance Intelligence
Need to monitor specific governance provisions?
Professional includes provision-level monitoring, governance timelines, regulatory mapping, and audit-ready analysis.
Built from archived source documents, structured governance mappings, and historical version tracking.
This provision establishes Steam's operational framework for data lifecycle management, defining the criteria by which the entity determines when personal data should be deleted or anonymized rather than maintained indefinitely.
Valve applies a factors-based retention assessment rather than fixed retention periods for most personal data categories, which means the duration your game statistics, account data, and payment information are held is determined by Valve's internal policies that are not publicly disclosed in this document.
ConductAtlas has identified this type of provision across 115 platforms. See the full comparison.
No. ConductAtlas is an independent monitoring service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Steam.