Short answer: if you delete your account yourself from your profile page, it happens immediately — not as a request into a queue, but there and then. If you ask us by email instead, your request is logged the day you send it and we confirm by email when your record is done.
The immediate route
Log in, open your profile edit page, and use the Delete my account button at the bottom. It shows you exactly what we hold before you confirm, lets you download a copy first, and deletes it the moment you confirm. Mind the neighbouring Go off radar button, which only deactivates and deletes nothing. The full walkthrough is in How do I close my account and delete my data?
The one case it cannot handle is a confirmed course or assignment that has not finished yet — we need your details until it wraps, so the button unlocks on its last day.
The written route, and why we will not promise you three days
Several people have asked for confirmation within 24, 48 or 72 hours of an emailed request. We understand the impulse, and we are not going to agree to a date we would then miss.
An emailed deletion is not one action. We have to match your message to the right record without deleting the wrong person's data, and check it against what we are legally required to keep. That check is longer for someone who has worked with us than for a guest, because tax, payroll and crew-list obligations apply to your record and not to theirs. The law gives us up to one month to respond, extendable in complex cases. We expect to be well inside that, and we would rather tell you the real position than the comfortable one.
If you can log in, the button removes the waiting entirely.
What happens on which timeline
Immediately — self-service deletion from your profile page, confirmed by one final email
Same day — an emailed request is logged and acknowledged
Within one month — the statutory limit for responding to an emailed erasure request
On completion — we email you to confirm what was removed and what had to stay
What will still be there afterwards
This is the part that differs most from a guest account, so it is worth being clear rather than letting it come as a surprise. Tax and payroll records, crew lists submitted to authorities, and records tied to your engagement are kept for as long as the law requires, then clear automatically. Everything outside them is removed.
The detail is in How do I close my account and delete my data?
What deleting does not undo
Deleting your account removes your data from our systems going forward. It does not retrieve what was copied in August, and nobody can offer you that. It also does not change what you should do about your password — that risk exists whether or not your account still exists.
If you are unhappy with how long it takes
You can complain to the ICO at any point, and you do not need our agreement to do it. The case reference is in Have you reported this to the data protection authorities?