SC-900 Practice Question: Describe the capabilities of Microsoft compliance solutions
A company has been fined for failing to respond to a data subject access request (DSAR) within the required timeframe. The compliance team needs to streamline the process of identifying and exporting personal data when a DSAR is received. Which Microsoft Purview solution should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
SC-900 often tests the confusion between compliance assessment tools (Compliance Manager) and data discovery tools (eDiscovery), so candidates must recognize that DSAR response requires search and export, not just scoring or policy monitoring.
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
✓
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium)
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium) is the correct solution because it provides the case management, search, hold, and export capabilities specifically designed to identify and collect responsive content for legal and regulatory requests, including DSARs. Its ability to search across Microsoft 365 workloads, apply advanced conditions, and export data in a review-ready format directly addresses the need to streamline DSAR response. Compliance Manager, by contrast, is an assessment and improvement tool, not a data discovery engine.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager is designed to help organizations manage their overall compliance posture by providing actionable insights, recommended actions, and a centralized view of compliance activities against various regulations and standards. While it assesses compliance and helps track progress, it is an assessment and management tool, not an operational solution for directly fulfilling specific data subject access requests (DSARs) by performing data searches, reviews, and exports.
- ✗
Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance focuses on helping organizations detect, investigate, and act on inappropriate messages in their internal and external communications, such as harassment, sensitive information sharing, or regulatory violations. Although it monitors communications for policy breaches, it lacks the specialized, comprehensive search, review, redaction, and secure export capabilities required to systematically identify and produce all personal data relevant to a specific data subject for a DSAR.
- ✓
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium)
Why this is correct
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium) provides advanced capabilities specifically designed for identifying, preserving, collecting, processing, reviewing, analyzing, and exporting content in response to legal, regulatory, or internal investigations, which explicitly includes Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs). Its comprehensive toolset allows for targeted searches across diverse data sources, intelligent review workflows, and secure export of relevant data, making it the ideal solution for efficiently fulfilling such obligations.
- ✗
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management (formerly Microsoft 365 Retention) is primarily focused on managing the lifecycle of data, including applying retention, deletion, and record management policies to meet regulatory and business requirements. While crucial for data governance, it does not offer the granular search, advanced review, and secure export functionalities across diverse data types necessary to efficiently identify and produce all personal data belonging to a specific individual for a DSAR.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Microsoft Purview
Key term
General Data Protection Regulation
A European Union law that gives individuals control over their personal data and sets strict rules for how organizations collect, store, and process that data.
Key term
eDiscovery
eDiscovery is the process of identifying, collecting, and producing electronic information for legal cases or investigations.
About these practice questions
This SC-900 question is part of Courseiva's 1,279-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Microsoft exam blueprint
This SC-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 SC-900 exam.