What do retention labels help you with?

Retention labels play a crucial role in managing content within an organization by facilitating the retention or deletion of content based on established policies. When retention labels are applied to documents or emails, they dictate how long that content should be retained and what should happen after that retention period ends. This is particularly important for compliance purposes, as many organizations must adhere to legal and regulatory requirements regarding data retention.

By specifying retention periods and actions (such as "retain for a certain number of years" or "delete after a specified time"), retention labels help ensure that organizations manage their data lifecycle effectively. This also aids in minimizing risks associated with data storage costs and potential legal issues stemming from improper data management.

While identifying sensitive data, labeling documents, and classifying data automatically are important aspects of information protection, they do not directly pertain to the primary function of retention labels, which is to define retention and deletion policies for content. Consequently, the focus of retention labels is specifically on ensuring compliance with retention requirements, making the choice related to retaining or deleting content based on set policies the most relevant.