---
title: Securing your data
description: How customer data is encrypted and how users can delete their personal data.
source: https://quantum.cloud.ibm.com/docs/en/guides/secure-data
---

# Securing your data

To ensure that you can securely manage your data when you use IBM Quantum® Platform, it is important to know exactly what data is stored and encrypted and how you can delete any stored data.

## Protecting your sensitive data

The data that you store in IBM Cloud® is encrypted at rest by using a randomly generated key.

## Deleting your data

Deleting a service instance removes all of the content associated with that instance, such as your jobs, results, parameters, and programs. To delete an instance, from the [Instances page](/instances), find the instance you want to remove, click its overflow menu, then click **Delete**. You will be asked to confirm the deletion.

If you have a Manager role, you can also delete an individual job and its data. See more about access policies, groups, and roles in the [documentation](/docs/guides/access-groups).

## Data retention policy

IBM will retain your (undeleted) data for three years while you are a current user of the service. To find information about how long data is retained by IBM after you stop using the service, see the [IBM Quantum Compute Service data sheet](https://www.ibm.com/support/customer/csol/terms/?id=BB6EE1D06BDE11EBA199CCFE56FA6D9D), found on the IBM Terms site.