MS-900 Practice Question: Describe security, compliance, privacy, and trust in Microsoft 365
An organization needs to automatically delete Microsoft Teams chat messages after 90 days to comply with a data minimization policy. Which Microsoft Purview feature should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse retention policies (which manage data lifecycle and deletion) with Data Loss Prevention (DLP), assuming DLP can also delete data after a period, but DLP only blocks or alerts on data in motion, not on scheduled deletion.
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
✓
Retention policies
Retention policies in Microsoft Purview are designed to either retain data for a specified period, delete it after that period, or both. For Microsoft Teams chat messages, a retention policy can be configured to automatically delete messages after 90 days, directly supporting a data minimization policy. This is the correct feature because it provides time-based deletion for compliance requirements.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
Why it's wrong here
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies in Microsoft Purview inspect Teams chat messages in near real time for predefined sensitive information types, such as passport numbers or credit card details, and apply actions like blocking transmission or notifying users. These policies are content-triggered and protective, but they have no concept of retention duration or scheduled cleanup. Consequently, DLP cannot automatically delete messages after a 90-day lifecycle; that is a records-management and retention function.
- ✓
Retention policies
Why this is correct
Retention policies are the correct mechanism because Microsoft 365 lets you assign a single policy to Teams channel conversations and 1:1/group chats that specifies a retention period (e.g., 90 days) and a disposition action of 'delete automatically' when that period ends. The policy evaluates content age based on the message's creation or last modification date, and Teams will permanently remove messages from the chat view while optionally preserving them for eDiscovery if you enable a preservation hold. This is exactly the lifecycle-management capability the question asks for.
- ✗
Communication Compliance
Why it's wrong here
Communication Compliance is a supervision solution rather than a deletion engine; it uses built-in and custom policies to analyze Teams chats for abusive language, conflicts of interest, or regulatory violations, then raises alerts for reviewers. While a reviewer can use features like 'resolve' or escalate, the system does not automatically delete messages after an aging period. Its scope is monitoring and investigative workflow, not time-based retention or disposition.
- ✗
Information Barriers
Why it's wrong here
Information Barriers are used to segment users into groups whose communications must not happen—for example, separating an M&A team from the general workforce to prevent leaks—by blocking chat initiation or message delivery in real time. They enforce access and communication restrictions based on policy segments and do not manage data lifecycles. Thus, they cannot be repurposed to delete any existing chat history after 90 days, since they operate on the communication graph, not on message expiration.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) in Microsoft 365
Key term
Retention policy
A retention policy is a set of rules that determines how long an organization keeps its data and what happens to it when the retention period expires.
Key term
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a collaboration platform that integrates chat, video meetings, file storage, and application integration into a single workspace, primarily used within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This MS-900 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft 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 MS-900 exam.