Aware 2.0 - Data Hold Overview

This article contains information on Aware's Data Hold feature, which preserves collaboration data for legal or business purposes by overriding retention policies and deletions. It explains active vs. inactive holds, impacts on data retention, and People Set Data Holds.

Understanding Data Hold

A Data Hold, as implemented by Aware, is a crucial component of comprehensive records retention strategies. It servs as a protective measure against potential legal risks associated with collaboration data, thereby mitigating potential business liabilities.

The primary function of the Data Hold is to safeguard an individual's collaboration data from spoliation, which includes the preservation of conversation context, edits, and deletions. This feature allows you to override automatic retention policies and manual deletions, ensuring the preservation of an individual's data for legal or business reasons.

The scope of a data hold encompasses data authored by a specified individual, sourced from one or more platforms of your choosing. This hold remains in effect indefinitely, only ceasing when explicitly released. It is possible to have multiple data holds concurrently in effect for the same individual. In such instances, each hold is managed independently, and the individual's data cannot be deleted until all holds are released. The system allows for an unlimited number of active holds for as many individuals as required.

Data Holds are only applicable if you have an active Retention Policy in your Aware environment.

Active vs. Inactive Data Holds

A data hold can exist in two states: active and inactive. Upon creation, a hold is immediately active, preventing the deletion of the individual's data. When a hold is released, it transitions to an inactive state, and the individual's data can once again be deleted.

See Create a Data Hold for more information.

Impact of Data Hold on Retention and User Removal

The presence of a data hold has a significant impact on retention and user data removal. When a hold is active, an individual's data is immune to deletion, whether manual via the User Data Removal, or automatic through existing and future Retention Policies. The hold applies to all existing and new data of the individual. To delete data, the hold must first be released.

{     "status": "active",     "version": "{string}" } 

People Set Data Hold

Microsoft Entra ID provides the capability to create a data hold on a specific set of people. This People Set Hold retains all data from content authors who are part of the Microsoft Entra ID  group. Any additional content authors added to this group are automatically included in the hold. Aware continuously monitors this group to maintain an updated list of content authors.

If a user is added to a Microsoft Entra ID Group, they are automatically included in the Data Hold. However, if a user is removed from the Microsoft Entra ID Group, they are not automatically removed from the Data Hold. To remove a user from the Data Hold, the entire Microsoft Entra ID people set must be removed from the hold.