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Legal Hold

What is Legal Hold?

A directive to preserve all relevant documents, data, and records when litigation is anticipated, overriding normal retention and deletion schedules.

Compliance and Regulatory

Terms that appear alongside legal hold

Each of these is named in at least one of the same controls as legal hold. The number is how many controls name both.

Frameworks that govern legal hold

ISO 27001:2022View framework →NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0View framework →NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5View framework →

What the standards actually require on legal hold

Requirements naming legal hold across 4 standards, quoted from the control text.

NIST SP 800-922 controls

Operate log retention per NIST SP 800-92 Chapter 4 (Planning) Section 4.5 + Chapter 5 Operational Processes. Retention policy aligned to legal and regulatory requirements: document retention period per log category (security event logs + audit logs + access lo...

NISTSP92-6 · Log Retention: Policy, Tiered Storage, Backup, Secure Disposal, Legal Hold →
Jamaica Data Protection Act 20201 control

Standard 5 per Section 23 + the Schedule of the Jamaica Data Protection Act 2020: Personal data shall be kept for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which they are processed.

JM-DPA2020-Standard5-Retention-Sec23-Time-Limit-No-Longer-Than-Necessary-Erasure-Deletion-Anonymisation · Jamaica DPA 2020 Standard 5 - Retention + Section 23 + Time Limit + No Longer Than Necessary + Erasure + Deletion + Anonymisation + Retention Schedule + Legal Hold + Backup Considerations + Storage Limitation →
ISO/IEC 27050 - Electronic Discovery (Parts 1-4)3 controls

Preserve identified ESI through legal holds, suspension of routine deletion and protection of metadata and chain of custody.

27050-3.2 · Preservation of ESI →
NIST SP 800-881 control

Maintain media inventory and tracking per NIST SP 800-88 Rev 1 Chapter 3 (Information Sanitization Process) + Chapter 4 (Decision Flow).

NISTSP88-5 · Media Inventory, Tracking, Chain of Custody, and Sanitization Records →

Questions people ask about legal hold

What is Legal Hold?
A directive to preserve all relevant documents, data, and records when litigation is anticipated, overriding normal retention and deletion schedules.
Why is Legal Hold important for compliance?
Legal Hold is a key concept in Compliance and Regulatory. Understanding legal hold helps organizations meet regulatory requirements, reduce risk, and demonstrate due diligence during audits. Our compliance platform maps 686 frameworks with 311K cross-framework control mappings.
Which compliance frameworks address Legal Hold?
Legal Hold appears in the requirement text of NIST SP 800-92, Jamaica Data Protection Act 2020, ISO/IEC 27050 - Electronic Discovery (Parts 1-4), NIST SP 800-88. Across these standards we have identified 7 controls that name it directly, each linked to the control text on the compliance platform.
Where can I learn more about Legal Hold?
Explore our compliance framework pages to see how legal hold applies across different standards and regulations. Our implementation guides provide step-by-step guidance, and the compliance platform offers AI-powered analysis of how this concept maps across 686 frameworks.

See how Legal Hold applies across compliance frameworks

Our platform maps 686 frameworks with 311K cross-framework control mappings. Explore how this concept is addressed across standards.

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Written and maintained by Gerard Blokdyk, The Art of Service.