How can a Snowflake administrator determine which user has accessed a database object that contains sensitive information?

The ACCESSHISTORY view, located in the ACCOUNTUSAGE schema, is the designated feature in Snowflake for auditing data access. It records which user queries have accessed specific database objects (tables, views, etc.), including both read and write operations. By querying this view, an administrator can identify the user, the query ID, and the timestamp of access for any object, which is essential for tracking access to sensitive information. This provides a comprehensive audit trail of user activity on data.

A. Review the granted privileges to the database object. This shows which roles and users have permission to access an object, but not whether they have actually done so. It indicates potential access, not historical access events.
B. Review the row access policy for the database object. A row access policy is a security feature that filters which rows are returned to a user. It controls access but does not provide a log of who accessed the object.
D. Query the REPLICATION USAGE HISTORY view in the ORGANIZATION USAGE schema. This view tracks data transfer volumes and credits consumed for database replication across accounts in an organization. It is unrelated to auditing user access to specific objects.

1. Snowflake Documentation: ACCESSHISTORY View.

Section: ACCOUNTUSAGE Schema > ACCESSHISTORY View.

Content: "This Account Usage view can be used to query Snowflake user query history along with the data access history. The access history includes the user

the query

the local time of the query

the objects that were accessed..." This directly supports using this view to determine which user accessed an object.

2. Snowflake Documentation: Overview of Access Control.

Section: Access Control in Snowflake > Overview of Access Control.

Content: This section explains that privileges grant the ability to perform actions on objects. It describes the framework for potential access

which contrasts with the historical access tracked by ACCESSHISTORY.

3. Snowflake Documentation: Understanding Row-level Security.

Section: Managing Security in Snowflake > Controlling Data Access with Row-Level Security.

Content: The documentation states

"A row access policy is a schema-level object that determines whether a given role can view a given row in a query result." This confirms its purpose is data filtering

not access logging.