New national legislation on the handling of personal data forces a service provider to change how it retains customer records. In the four dimensions model, how is this legislation best classified?

ITIL 4 Foundation, objective 3. The four dimensions of service management medium

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The options

Not correct A fifth dimension of service management, added when regulation applies

There are exactly four dimensions. PESTLE factors surround and constrain all four; they are not an additional dimension.

Correct An external factor, under the legal element of the PESTLE model

Correct. PESTLE — political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental — describes the external factors that constrain or influence the organization and that it generally cannot control, only respond to.

Not correct A component of the information and technology dimension, because it concerns data

Compliance requirements certainly shape how the information and technology dimension is designed, but the legislation itself originates outside the organization and is modelled as an external PESTLE factor.

Not correct A constraint that belongs to the partners and suppliers dimension, since regulators are third parties

Regulators are not partners or suppliers. That dimension covers organizations involved in designing, deploying, delivering or supporting the service under a commercial or cooperative relationship.

Why

ITIL 4 uses PESTLE (political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental) to describe the external factors that affect the organization and all four dimensions of service management. Legislation is the classic legal factor: the organization cannot control it and must adapt its dimensions to comply.

Where this comes from

Cited
ITIL 4 syllabus clause 3.1
What it says
External factors described by the PESTLE model — political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental — affect all four dimensions and are largely outside the organization's control.

Practise this

Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 3 and space the ones you get wrong.

Practise ITIL 4 Foundation