The NSA promises it’s going to destroy your phone records—just not quite yet.

That’s the gist of the Obama administration’s announcement Monday that the NSA will eventually be required to get rid of all the records they collected under a since-expired metadata collection program.

"As soon as possible, NSA will destroy the Section 215 bulk telephony metadata upon expiration of its litigation preservation obligations," the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement. 

For now, however, the NSA says they have to keep the records, since they’re being sued over them. They claim they will not access the records for any reasons unrelated to the suit.

“The telephony metadata preserved solely because of preservation obligations in pending civil litigation will not be used or accessed for any other purpose, and, as soon as possible, N.S.A. will destroy,” the agency told the New York Times.

After the Patriot Act provisions the government had used to justify the program expired in June, Congress passed a new law governing how the NSA collects data. That left many wondering the fate of the old phone records.

The agency is still preparing to transition over to the new rules.

Starting November 29, officials said, NSA agents will lose access to the old database. They will, however, still be able to look at "historical records" for an extra three months, according to the Times, in order to "compare the data to the calling records produced under the new system."