Which Snowflake view is used to support compliance auditing?

The ACCESSHISTORY view in the ACCOUNTUSAGE schema is specifically designed to support compliance auditing. It logs user queries that access or modify data, providing detailed information down to the column level. This allows auditors to track which columns were read (e.g., columns containing PII) and which tables were modified by user queries. This granular tracking of data access and lineage is essential for meeting regulatory compliance requirements like GDPR and CCPA, making it the primary tool for this purpose.

B. COPYHISTORY: This view tracks the history of data loaded into Snowflake tables via the COPY INTO command, which is useful for data ingestion monitoring, not for auditing user access to data.
C. QUERYHISTORY: While it contains a log of all executed queries, it is more general. ACCESSHISTORY provides a more focused and enriched view specifically for data access auditing, including column-level details.
D. ROW ACCESS POLICIES: This is a security feature (a schema-level object) used to implement row-level security to control data access, not a historical view used to audit past access events.

1. Snowflake Documentation: ACCESSHISTORY View

Reference: In the ACCOUNTUSAGE schema section, the documentation for the ACCESSHISTORY view explicitly states its primary use cases.

Quote/Paraphrase: "This user access information is useful for compliance auditors to know which roles and users are accessing which data... The view contains the query history of read operations... and write operations..."

Location: Snowflake Documentation > Reference > SQL Reference > Account Usage > ACCESSHISTORY View.

2. Snowflake Documentation: Data Governance with Snowflake

Reference: The "Know your data" section within the data governance guide highlights the role of ACCESSHISTORY.

Quote/Paraphrase: "The Access History feature in Snowflake tracks user access to data. For each query that a user runs, Access History tracks the tables and columns the user accessed... This information helps compliance teams to audit access to sensitive data and demonstrate compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA."

Location: Snowflake Documentation > Guides > Security > Data Governance with Snowflake > Know your data.

3. Snowflake Documentation: COPYHISTORY View

Reference: The documentation describes the purpose of the COPYHISTORY view.

Quote/Paraphrase: "This Account Usage view can be used to query the history of data loaded into tables..." This confirms its focus is on data loading, not access auditing.

Location: Snowflake Documentation > Reference > SQL Reference > Account Usage > COPYHISTORY View.