Question

A privacy engineer is designing the deletion workflow for a document management platform. The relational database stores metadata and a foreign-key reference to each customer file, while the actual files reside in a cloud object store (blob storage). During a review, the engineer discovers that when a customer record is deleted from the database at the end of its retention period, the corresponding blob objects remain in the object store indefinitely because deletion logic only targets the database rows. Which design change BEST enforces the retention requirement across the system?

Accepted Answer

Implement a coordinated deletion process (e.g., transactional or event-driven) that removes the blob objects whenever the associated database record is purged, and reconcile orphaned objects periodically

Answer

Encrypt the blob objects at rest so that any residual files remain unreadable after the database record is deleted

Answer

Extend the retention period of the database records to match the longest possible retention of the blob objects

Answer

Move the blob objects to a lower-cost archival storage tier once the database record is deleted