Teams celebrate when a purge job returns zero matches in the live database. The next question is whether the same customer row still exists in cold backup, object storage mirrors, or a support-tool export.
Deletion evidence reviews sample those stores deliberately. We ask vendors for destruction cadence and attestation language, not marketing privacy pages.
If a backup must retain longer for disaster recovery, document the isolation, encryption, and final destruction date. Silence looks like indefinite retention.
Build the evidence pack once, then refresh it on a calendar. Assembling it during an exam week is how gaps become findings.