Purview can now hard-delete content under a hold — carefully

#RegoConsulting #SimpleSharepoint #MicrosoftPurview #DataGovernance #Compliance #DataLifecycleManagement #eDiscovery #InformationGovernance #CopilotReadiness #DataSecurity

We’ve walked more than a few tenants through retention cleanups, and the hard part is rarely deleting data. It’s deleting the right data without breaking a legal hold someone forgot was there.

Microsoft has made that safer to do. As of June 2026, Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management includes a priority cleanup workflow that can permanently delete (hard delete) specific OneDrive and SharePoint content — even when retention policies or eDiscovery holds apply. The guardrail is role separation: content under an eDiscovery hold can’t be purged on a global or SharePoint admin’s say-so — it needs sign-off from someone with the eDiscovery Administrator role. SharePoint policies run in simulation first to confirm scope.

This is aimed squarely at the data-minimization problem that Copilot made urgent — old, sensitive, or redundant files that shouldn’t be reachable by AI and shouldn’t still be consuming storage. But “override a hold” is exactly the capability you want behind a clear approval workflow and named owners, not a one-off action someone runs under pressure.

How the SimpleSharepoint team helps you get this done:
• Policy and approval design — we stand up the priority cleanup policy with the right eDiscovery approval gates, so a hard delete always has a second set of eyes.
• Targeting — we help you separate what’s genuinely safe to purge from what has to stay, and validate it in simulation before anything is deleted.
• Recurring cleanup — we run data minimization as an ongoing review, so risky content doesn’t pile back up between projects.

If you’re tightening what Copilot can reach, this belongs on the list — and we’re glad to compare approaches. Let’s plan this together.