Oscar data is licensed to you — it does not become permanently yours because you downloaded it
Under Oscar's current Data Usage Terms, licensed Oscar data can be held and used during the agreed licence period. Once that period ends, the Oscar-supplied data must be removed unless the licence is renewed or another explicit arrangement applies. Your own records, notes, transactional history and independently obtained information are a separate matter.
A downloaded spreadsheet can feel like an owned asset because it sits inside your own system. Legally and contractually, however, that is not how licensed data works.
Oscar invests continuously in researching, validating, structuring and maintaining its database. A licence gives a customer permission to use selected data for the agreed period and purpose; it does not transfer ownership of the underlying Oscar database.
The three buckets to keep separate
Oscar-supplied data
Organisation, postholder, contact, structural and other data supplied from the Oscar database remains subject to the Oscar licence and Data Usage Terms.
Your own business records
Your notes, activity history, deal records, campaign results, internal classifications and other information created independently by your organisation remain your own business records.
Information you obtained elsewhere
If your organisation independently sourced information from another legitimate source, its use is governed by that source, applicable law and your own responsibilities — not by Oscar merely because the same fact also exists in Oscar.
CRM records containing both
A CRM record may contain your own history alongside Oscar-derived fields. At licence end, the Oscar-derived data needs to be removed while the genuinely independent business record can remain.
How long does the standard Oscar licence last?
Oscar's current Data Usage Terms state that a standard licence for data selections runs for 364 days after order confirmation, unless a different licence period has been explicitly agreed.
The exact agreement for the specific subscription or project always takes priority, so customers should check the welcome message, account details, order confirmation or speak to the Oscar team if anything is unclear.
Because the value of a maintained database is not simply the initial download. Organisations restructure, postholders leave, responsibilities move, contact details change and preferences are updated. A time-limited licence keeps usage tied to maintained, current data rather than an ageing snapshot.
What do I need to do during the licence?
Keeping the licence active does not mean an old export should sit untouched in a CRM for eleven months.
Oscar's current terms require that no element of Oscar data held by a user should be more than 30 days old. Customers are therefore required to download fresh copies of their selections at least every 30 days and use the new download to update or replace older Oscar data.
Depending on the product and setup, this can be done using fresh downloads, changes-since tools, feeds, APIs or other data-delivery methods.
Why does the 30-day refresh matter?
Because people move.
Someone can leave a council, join an NHS body, change function, ask for a preference change or disappear from a structure entirely. An organisation can merge, close or restructure. An email address that was valid six months ago can now belong to nobody useful at all.
Refreshing protects both sides:
- customers are working with more accurate information;
- postholder changes and preference updates flow through more quickly;
- obsolete records are less likely to be repeatedly reused;
- campaigns are less likely to waste effort on stale contacts;
- the licensed dataset remains connected to the maintained Oscar source.
What happens when the licence ends?
If the licence is not renewed, Oscar's current terms require Oscar-supplied data to be removed from the user's or nominated users' systems.
In practice, that means checking places where the data may have been copied or synchronised, such as:
- spreadsheets and downloaded files;
- CRM contact and organisation fields;
- marketing platforms;
- sales-enablement tools;
- shared drives;
- internal databases;
- automated feeds or integrations.
This does not mean deleting the history of your own relationship with an organisation or customer. It means removing the data supplied under the expired Oscar licence.
What can stay in my CRM?
| Example | Can it generally remain? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Your sales notes | Yes | These are records your organisation created through its own activity. |
| Deal / opportunity history | Yes | This reflects your own commercial relationship and business activity. |
| Oscar-supplied job title | Not after licence expiry unless independently sourced or otherwise permitted | The field came from Oscar's licensed dataset. |
| Oscar-supplied email address | Not after licence expiry unless independently sourced or otherwise permitted | The contact detail was supplied under the Oscar licence. |
| Email reply from the contact | Your correspondence record can remain | The communication itself is part of your business record, subject to your own legal obligations. |
| Information later supplied directly by the contact | Potentially, yes | If genuinely obtained independently, it is no longer being retained solely because Oscar supplied it — but your own data-protection obligations still apply. |
Ask: “If Oscar had never supplied this field, would we still legitimately have this information because of our own relationship or another independent source?” If the answer is no, it is likely still Oscar-derived data.
What about people who became customers or prospects?
Becoming a customer, prospect or correspondent can create your own legitimate business records — but it does not magically convert every Oscar-derived field into your permanent property.
You may have your own record of conversations, contracts, enquiries, meetings, preferences and information provided directly by that person or organisation. Those records need to be managed under your own lawful basis, privacy obligations and retention policies.
Oscar's licence terms and UK data-protection law are related but separate questions. Complying with one does not automatically mean you have complied with the other.
What about opt-outs?
If someone asks your organisation not to receive further marketing, you should maintain your own suppression or stop list and ensure future activity excludes that person.
That is true even if you later receive a newer Oscar file containing the same person. A fresh data licence does not erase a marketing preference expressed directly to you.
Oscar can support some opt-out mechanisms, but the current Data Usage Terms make clear that users remain responsible for maintaining and applying their own stop lists.
Can I just copy Oscar data into another system before the licence expires?
No. Moving licensed data from one tool to another does not change its origin or the licence that governs it.
A CSV becomes a CRM field; a CRM field becomes a marketing-platform contact; an API result becomes a local database record. Those format changes do not turn Oscar data into independently owned information.
What if we need the data permanently?
Talk to us before designing the workflow around that assumption.
Different requirements may need different commercial or technical arrangements. In some cases the right answer is a renewable data licence; in others it may be an API, maintained feed, periodic refresh or a bespoke licence agreed for a specific use case.
It is much easier to design this correctly at the start than untangle an undocumented CRM several years later.
This article is a practical explanation, not a replacement for the licence
Oscar's Data Usage Terms are the controlling document. The current published version states that standard data-selection licences run for 364 days unless otherwise specified, data should be refreshed at least every 30 days, and Oscar data cannot be held or used beyond the applicable licence period unless another arrangement applies.
Five things to remember
- Oscar data is licensed, not sold outright.
- Keep it current: refresh licensed data at least every 30 days under the current terms.
- Licence expiry matters: Oscar-derived data needs to be removed if the licence ends and is not renewed.
- Your own business history is different: notes, correspondence and independently created records are not automatically Oscar data.
- If in doubt, ask: it is better to confirm the position for a specific workflow than guess.
Important
This page is designed to make the practical position easier to understand. It is not legal advice and does not override a customer's order terms, licence agreement or the current Oscar Data Usage Terms. Where there is any difference, the applicable agreement and published terms take precedence.