Quick Answer
The correct answer is Amazon Macie and Amazon Comprehend working together. Amazon Macie uses machine learning and pattern matching to automatically discover and classify sensitive data, such as PII, across your S3 buckets, while Amazon Comprehend provides the natural language processing capability to detect and redact specific PII entities like names, addresses, or Social Security numbers from the text within those objects. On the AWS Certified Data Engineer Associate DEA-C01 exam, this pairing tests your understanding of how to build a serverless, automated data protection pipeline—Macie identifies the sensitive objects, and a downstream process invokes Comprehend to perform the actual redaction. A common trap is choosing only Macie, but remember Macie discovers and alerts; it does not redact. The memory tip is “Macie finds it, Comprehend blinds it.”
This DEA-C01 practice question tests your understanding of data security and governance. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company stores sensitive data in Amazon S3. The data engineer needs to implement a solution that automatically detects and redacts PII in new objects as they are uploaded. Which TWO AWS services should be used together?
AWS Glue ETL
Why wrong: Can transform but not detect PII natively.
Amazon Macie
Detects PII in S3.
Amazon DynamoDB
Why wrong: Not for PII detection.
Amazon Comprehend
Can detect and redact PII.
AWS Glue Data Catalog
Why wrong: Not for PII detection.
Answer choices
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 is a fully managed data security and data privacy service that uses machine learning and pattern matching to discover and protect sensitive data in Amazon S3. Amazon Comprehend is a natural language processing (NLP) service that can be used to detect and redact PII entities from text. Together, they enable automated detection and redaction of PII in newly uploaded S3 objects by triggering Macie to identify sensitive data and then using Comprehend to redact the PII.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
AWS Glue ETL
Why it's wrong here
Can transform but not detect PII natively.
Amazon Macie
Why this is correct
Detects PII in S3.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Amazon DynamoDB
Why it's wrong here
Not for PII detection.
Amazon Comprehend
Why this is correct
Can detect and redact PII.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
AWS Glue Data Catalog
Why it's wrong here
Not for PII detection.
Common exam traps
AWS often tests the distinction between data discovery (Macie) and data processing/redaction (Comprehend), leading candidates to incorrectly select only Macie or to confuse Glue ETL as a redaction tool.
Detailed technical explanation
Under the hood, Macie uses managed data identifiers and custom identifiers to scan S3 objects for sensitive data types such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, and other PII. When Macie detects PII, it can publish findings to Amazon EventBridge, which can then trigger an AWS Lambda function that invokes Amazon Comprehend's DetectPiiEntities and RedactPiiEntities APIs to redact the identified PII from the object content. This event-driven architecture ensures that redaction happens automatically and near-real-time upon object upload.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
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FAQ
Data Security and Governance — This question tests Data Security and Governance — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Amazon Macie — Amazon Macie is a fully managed data security and data privacy service that uses machine learning and pattern matching to discover and protect sensitive data in Amazon S3. Amazon Comprehend is a natural language processing (NLP) service that can be used to detect and redact PII entities from text. Together, they enable automated detection and redaction of PII in newly uploaded S3 objects by triggering Macie to identify sensitive data and then using Comprehend to redact the PII.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 30, 2026
This DEA-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 DEA-C01 exam.
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