What Does Data-Retention Policy Mean?

A data-retention policy is an organization’s policy or protocol regarding the saving of data for regulatory or compliance purposes, or the disposal of it when no longer needed. The policy highlights how data or records need to be formatted and what storage devices or system to use, as well as the how long these need to be kept, which is usually based on a regulatory body’s rules.

Techopedia Explains Data-Retention Policy

Data-retention policies are all about what, where and how long data should be stored or archived. When the retention time of a specific set of data has expired, it either gets moved to a tertiary storage as historical data or gets deleted entirely to keep storage spaces clean.