AIF-C01 Practice Question: Security, Compliance, and Governance for AI Solutions
A company wants to detect sensitive data such as PII in their training datasets stored in S3 before using them for model training. Which AWS service should they use?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Amazon Macie
Amazon Macie uses machine learning to discover and protect sensitive data in S3, including PII.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Amazon Macie
Why this is correct
Amazon Macie uses machine learning and pattern matching to automatically discover, classify and alert on sensitive data such as PII within S3 buckets, directly satisfying the requirement to scan training datasets before use. It continuously evaluates bucket contents against managed and custom data identifiers, providing the visibility needed prior to model training.
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Amazon Inspector
Why it's wrong here
Amazon Inspector scans EC2 instances, container images and Lambda functions for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure; it does not inspect S3 objects for PII. It would be the right choice for continuous vulnerability assessment of compute workloads, but Macie is the service that discovers sensitive data in S3.
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AWS Shield
Why it's wrong here
AWS Shield provides DDoS protection at the network and transport layers for resources such as CloudFront and Elastic IPs; it performs no content inspection of S3 objects, so it cannot identify PII. It would be correct when defending an internet-facing application against volumetric attacks, not for data classification.
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Amazon GuardDuty
Why it's wrong here
GuardDuty monitors account, network and CloudTrail activity for malicious or anomalous behaviour; it does not scan S3 objects to classify or redact PII. It is tempting because it does surface findings about S3 buckets, but it is the correct choice for threat detection, whereas Amazon Macie identifies sensitive data in S3.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AIF-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AIF-C01 exam.