Time of preservation of phone numbers: what CNDP says in Morocco

The collection of the phone number is not a perpetual transfer of ownership, it is a “loan” conditioned to a precise use (processing) and limited in time.

The Law 09-08 (CNDP) strictly governs the duration for which you are entitled to store the number (+212) of a prospect or a customer in your CRM database or on your platform of Send SMS (Bulk).

Article 3 of Law 09-08 states that personal data must be stored in a form that allows the identification of data subjects for a period not exceeding that necessary for the fulfillment of the purposes for which they are collected and processed.

In clear terms: If you have requested a number to notify a customer that [his e-commerce order is ready] (/fr/guides/otp-authentication-maroc/), once the order is delivered, the purpose is achieved.

Moroccan law does not set the number of months set in the founding text (this depends on the type of data), but the CNDP follows industry standards (aligned with European standards and best practices).

In the case of Direct Marketing (SMS, Emailing), the rule of doctrine is often the rule of 3 years of inactivity. - For an Active Customer: As long as the person purchases from you or uses your services regularly, the contract is short, and you can keep the number. - For an inactive Customer or a Prospect: If the person has not responded to any requests, has not clicked on your SMS, or purchased a product for 3 years (from the end of the business relationship or the last contact), his number must be purely deleted or anonymized from your sending databases.

Developers who design CRMs or use [SMS API] platforms (/fr/api-sms-maroc/) must incorporate the concept of "Data Life Cycle". Left to human work, purge is never done. You must create a CRON task (automated script).

Example of purge logic:```sql
-- Requête mensuelle pour supprimer les numéros des clients inactifs
-- depuis plus de 36 mois (3 ans) qui n'ont fait aucune transaction.
DELETE FROM contacts_marketing
WHERE last_activity_date < DATE_SUB(NOW(), INTERVAL 36 MONTH)
AND has_active_contract = FALSE;

In addition to the law, there is the logic of profitability.Sending SMS campaigns on a basis that has not been cleaned for 5 years is a financial suicide.

In Morocco, the renewal of prepaid SIM cards (churn operator) is massive. An inactive number for 2 years has a high chance of being recycled by Maroc Telecom, Orange or inwi, and reassigned to a completely different person (who will complain of receiving spam). Your Hard Bounces rate will collapse, and the operator will end up with block your Sender ID due to poor quality traffic.

Technical recommendation: 1.If a SMS returns a DLR status ‘REJECTED’ or ‘UNDELIVERABLE’ during a campaign, set up a Webhook that immediately removes that number from your prospecting base.2. Don’t wait 3 years to act.A SMS contact base older than 12 months without any interaction should be considered “cold” and would ideally require a re-engagement campaign before purge.