How to ensure legal hold documents are not deleted or modified?
You have important legal hold documents in a Cloud Storage bucket. You need to ensure that these documents are not deleted or modified. What should you do?
Community Votes
100% of anonymous learners picked answer A. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.
Community Insight
The exam tests the distinction between standard retention policies and locked retention policies for enforcing immutability.
To protect legal hold documents from deletion or modification, use a retention policy and lock it. This ensures immutability for the specified period.
Selecting Object Versioning (Option C) is a common mistake because it preserves history but does not prevent the current object from being deleted or overwritten.
Community Discussion (4 comments)
- Setting a retention policy on a Cloud Storage bucket prevents objects from being deleted for the duration of the retention period. - Locking the policy makes it immutable, meaning that the retention period cannot be reduced or removed, thus ensuring that the documents cannot be deleted or overwritten until the retention period expires.
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Expert Analysis
Why the Answer Is Correct
A locked retention policy enforces a "write once, read many" (WORM) state on the bucket. Once locked, the policy cannot be shortened, removed, or suspended by anyone, including project owners or admins. This guarantees that the legal hold documents remain immutable for the duration of the retention period, satisfying the strict requirement.Why the Other Options Are Wrong
Option B changes the storage class to Archive, which only affects cost and access latency, not data protection against deletion. Option C enables versioning, which allows users to overwrite the current object (keeping the old version) or delete the object, failing the "not modified" requirement. Option D creates a backup in a different region but does not prevent modification or deletion of the primary data.Community Comment Notes
Commenters emphasize that locking the policy is the critical step for achieving true immutability. As noted in Comment [1], locking ensures the retention period cannot be reduced or removed, which is essential for compliance scenarios like legal holds. The community consensus strongly supports Option A as the only compliant solution.Official Reference
Exam Strategy
Look for keywords like 'legal hold,' 'immutable,' or 'cannot be deleted.' Always choose 'Lock retention policy' over standard retention or versioning for strict compliance scenarios.