What do privileged session recordings contain, and who can see them?

Privileged access records the sessions people open on administration accounts, so that the organization can prove what was done on its critical systems. This page explains what is recorded, who can see it and how long it is kept.

What is recorded?

In an SSH session	Not recorded
What the server shows in the terminal	Anything outside the session (your computer, other tabs)
What you type, with secrets you type at password prompts masked	The vaulted password, which you never see
File transfers (SFTP operations) and alerts raised by rules

The service also keeps who asked for the access, the justification and ticket you wrote, who approved, when the session started and ended, and why it ended.

Who can see a recording?

Your organization's administrators who have access to privileged access: they can watch a session live and replay a recording. Approvers see the request, not the recording. Recordings are encrypted at the gateway with a key of your organization, protected by the service's key management, and are decrypted only to replay them in your organization's console, after their integrity has been checked. The gateway itself cannot read past recordings.

Can a recording be changed or deleted early?

No. Each recording is sealed, and its digest is anchored in the organization's audit chain, so any change is detected. Recordings sit in storage locked for their retention period: not even an administrator can delete them before it ends.

How long are recordings kept?

For the period the organization sets in the PAM settings (from 30 days to 10 years). After that they are purged automatically, unless a recording is on legal hold, for example during an investigation. Releasing a legal hold always needs a second administrator.

What happens to my recordings if I ask for my data to be erased?

The key of your recordings that are not on legal hold is destroyed, so they can never be read again, and your requests, accesses and SSH keys are cancelled or revoked. The record of who approved what is kept as evidence of access, as the GDPR allows. Your organization, as the controller, answers these requests.

Is this employee monitoring?

The recordings cover only privileged sessions, which you request for a specific task and period. Your organization decides the legal basis, informs the people concerned and, where applicable, consults the workers' representatives. Ask your organization's data protection officer if you have questions.