Data Return and Destruction of Data (a) Protecting PII from unauthorized access and disclosure is of the utmost importance to the EA, and Contractor agrees that it is prohibited from retaining PII or continued access to PII or any copy, summary or extract of PII, on any storage medium (including, without limitation, in secure data centers and/or cloud-based facilities) whatsoever beyond the period of providing Services to the EA, unless such retention is either expressly authorized for a prescribed period by the Service Agreement or other written agreement between the Parties, or expressly requested by the EA for purposes of facilitating the transfer of PII to the EA or expressly required by law. As applicable, upon expiration or termination of the Service Agreement, Contractor shall transfer PII, in a format agreed to by the Parties to the EA. (b) If applicable, once the transfer of PII has been accomplished in accordance with the EA’s written election to do so, Contractor agrees to return or destroy all PII when the purpose that necessitated its receipt by Contractor has been completed. Thereafter, with regard to all PII (including without limitation, all hard copies, archived copies, electronic versions, electronic imaging of hard copies) as well as any and all PII maintained on behalf of Contractor in a secure data center and/or cloud-based facilities that remain in the possession of Contractor or its Subcontractors, Contractor shall ensure that PII is securely deleted and/or destroyed in a manner that does not allow it to be retrieved or retrievable, read or reconstructed. Hard copy media must be shredded or destroyed such that PII cannot be read or otherwise reconstructed, and electronic media must be cleared, purged, or destroyed such that the PII cannot be retrieved. Only the destruction of paper PII, and not redaction, will satisfy the requirements for data destruction. Redaction is specifically excluded as a means of data destruction. (c) Contractor shall provide the EA with a written certification of the secure deletion and/or destruction of PII held by the Contractor or Subcontractors. (d) To the extent that Contractor and/or its subcontractors continue to be in possession of any de-identified data (i.e., data that has had all direct and indirect identifiers removed), they agree not to attempt to re-identify de-identified data and not to transfer de-identified data to any party.