Question

A financial services company has a documented data retention policy stating that customer transaction records must be kept for exactly 7 years to satisfy regulatory audit requirements, after which they must be destroyed. During a routine review, a data analyst discovers a table containing transaction records dating back 11 years that were never removed. What is the MOST appropriate action for the analyst to take?

Accepted Answer

Escalate the finding to the data governance team so records exceeding the 7-year retention period can be securely purged according to the disposal policy

Answer

Archive the 11-year-old records to cold storage so they are available if any future analysis needs them

Answer

Leave the records in place because keeping more historical data improves the accuracy of trend analysis

Answer

Immediately delete all records older than 7 years personally to bring the table into compliance as quickly as possible