Because modern privacy is still young, the world doesn’t yet have a shared understanding of every term in privacy compliance. To help bring us to that shared understanding, here’s our primer on what we mean when we say “automated data mapping.”
Because modern privacy is still young, the world doesn’t yet have a shared understanding of every term in privacy compliance. To help bring us to that shared understanding, here’s our primer on what we mean when we say “automated data mapping.”
Automated data mapping is about more than just one visual snapshot of your data flows. It’s about how you get to that visual map and what you do once you have it. To create a data map, you need a platform that can efficiently inventory diverse data formats across your tech stack. And once you have your data map, you need a platform that can make sense of the data and deliver the reports needed to meet privacy compliance.
Automation is key to both creating a data map and making sense of the map once it is built. When we talk about automated data mapping, we are talking about automated data management and inventory tools that build on the basic legal information you provide. The result is an automated platform does the heavy lifting for you, giving your team and users a seamless experience when users exercise their data rights.
Regardless of your background, we’ll walk you through the role of automation in data mapping.
Put simply, a schema is a complete layout of a database: what it stores and how it stores that information. When you add a SaaS app to your company’s tech stack, you want to know what kind of personal information the app gathers. Having already analyzed this app’s schema, an automated tool pre-fills the types of information likely to reside in this app’s systems. This brings a huge time savings to your team, who’d otherwise need to contact the app’s engineers to gather this insight.
Sometimes, the same piece of information is stored in different formats or data structures. For instance, one app might store each customer’s name in one string of characters, like “John Smith.” Meanwhile, another app stores first and last names in separate strings: one for “John” and another for “Smith.”
When John Smith, a hypothetical California resident, asks to access all personal data you have on him, you might only see some of his data when conducting a basic search for “John Smith” in your systems. This one oversight can cost you hundreds in CCPA fines, not to mention the cost in users’ trust.
Automated data mapping detects and reconciles different data structures to deliver an accurate view of your systems.
Suppose John Smith requests that you delete all of the information you hold about him. It’s on your company to enforce that deletion across every part of your company’s data flow, including third parties’ systems. Here’s where automation does the heavy lifting. An automated data mapping tool connects disparate databases to seamlessly enforce such a request.
With Ethyca, a data map distills your company’s complex data flows into a clear visual. You also receive an automatic and downloadable report that meets GDPR requirements for a Record of Processing Activities (RoPA). This report simplifies internal and external review while remaining ready to adapt to changes in your tech stack. Below is a simple example of what you’d expect to find in a RoPA. Ethyca’s is considerably more robust!
More than a static visual, a data map is an evolving project to account for all data in your systems. Now that you understand data mapping, you probably want to see it in action. Drop us a line, and we’ll gladly show you what data mapping can bring to your business.
Ethyca hosted its second P.x session with the Fides Slack Community earlier this week. Our Senior Software Engineer Thomas La Piana gave a live walkthrough of the open-source privacy engineering platform, Fides 2.0. He demonstrated how users can easily deploy Fides and go from 0 to full DSR automation in less than 15 minutes. If you weren’t able to attend, here are the three main points addressed during the session.
Introducing consent management in Fides 2.0. With the coming state privacy laws in 2023, your business needs to have granular control over users’ data and their consent preferences. Learn more about how Fides can enable this for your business, for free.
Ethyca launched its privacy engineering meetup, P.x, where Fides Slack Community members met and interacted with the Fides developer team. Two of our Senior Software Engineers, Dawn and Steve, gave presentations and demos on the importance of data minimization, and how Fides can make data minimization easier for teams. Here, we’ll recap the three main points of discussion.
We enjoyed two great days of security and privacy talks at this year’s Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security, aka SOUPS Conference! Presenters from all over the world spoke both in-person and virtually on the latest findings in privacy and security research.
At Ethyca, we believe that software engineers are becoming major privacy stakeholders, but do they feel the same way? To answer this question, we went out and asked 337 software engineers what they think about the state of contemporary privacy… and how they would improve it.
The UK’s new Data Reform Bill is set to ease data privacy compliance burdens on businesses to enable convenience and spark innovation in the country. We explain why convenience should not be the end result of a country’s privacy legislation.
Our team of data privacy devotees would love to show you how Ethyca helps engineers deploy CCPA, GDPR, and LGPD privacy compliance deep into business systems. Let’s chat!
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