How to ensure legal hold documents are not deleted or modified?
Short answer
A Set a retention policy. Lock the retention policy.
Question
Key Takeaways
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.
Common mistake: 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.
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
https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/bucket-lock
This link opens the official vendor documentation in a new tab.
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.
Community Votes
100% of anonymous learners picked answer A. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.
Discussion 4 contributions
Compiled from public community threads and reader submissions, lightly edited for clarity. Handles and vote tallies are shown as recorded, and comments reflect the views of individual contributors.
From public community threads 4
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raaad 👍 6 Answered A- 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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Matt_108 👍 2 Answered AOption A - set retention policy to prevent deletion, lock it to make it immutable (not subject to edits)
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scaenruy 👍 1 Answered AA. Set a retention policy. Lock the retention policy.
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JyoGCP 👍 2 Answered AOption A
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