A library consortium must keep contested digital records immutable for a court-mandated retention period, including protection against privileged deletion. Which S3 control best meets a WORM-style legal hold requirement?

A library consortium facing court-mandated retention for contested digital records needs true write-once-read-many protection, including resistance to privileged deletion. S3 Object Lock in Compliance mode, with an appropriate retention period or legal hold, is the control that matches that requirement. Compliance mode prevents overwrite and delete by any principal—including the root user—until retention expires, which is the WORM posture legal counsel expects for evidentiary materials. Governance mode is weaker and can be overridden by specially privileged users; when the stem emphasizes protection against privileged deletion, Compliance mode is the exam-aligned answer.

Versioning alone preserves prior versions but does not impose retention locks; privileged users can still delete versions unless Object Lock retention is applied. S3 Intelligent-Tiering optimizes storage cost by moving objects between access tiers; it has no immutability semantics and does not satisfy legal hold. A public-read bucket policy so auditors can always fetch copies is the opposite of a retention control: it expands exposure while providing zero deletion protection.

Exam caveat: Object Lock requires a versioning-enabled bucket and must be considered at bucket creation for some configurations—do not confuse versioning, MFA Delete, and Object Lock. Operational check: enable Object Lock on the records bucket, apply Compliance retention or legal hold to contested objects, attempt a privileged delete in a test account to prove denial, and document retention end dates for the consortium’s counsel.