Unifi Software, the self-service catalog and prep tool combined in a cloud-optimized Data as a Service platform, governed by IT and operated by business users, announced RegAlert! for real-time monitoring of all data assets to ensure companies conform to the European Union (EU) requirements for the personal protection of data under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
In just a few short months the world will experience one of the biggest changes to our regulatory landscape in support of data privacy with GDPR. The aim of GDPR, according to the EU, is to protect citizens privacy from data breaches that are occurring at an astounding rate,” said Rob Carlson, Co-Founder and CEO, Unifi Software. “In our data-driven world it’s arguably one of the biggest challenges facing every global enterprise. Whether a company has just one customer in the EU or thousands, they will be mandated to protect personal data under an expanded jurisdiction. Our goal at Unifi, is to ensure that every business user inside a company has access to data for generating business value, and at the same time to assist the stewards of data compliance and governance.”
Ask anyone in charge of compliance or regulatory mandates within a company if they’re prepared for the key changes under GDPR, and you’ll likely hear a pained response. Many are either unfamiliar with the compliance requirements or the broad potential for breach inside their organization. For any enterprise, the fines for being unprepared are stiff—up to four percent of annual global revenue or €20M, whichever is greater.
Over the years, nations around the globe have thrown a patchwork of regulations at the issue of data privacy to begin calling companies on the carpet to answer for their misdeeds,” said Jeff Cotrupe, Industry Director, Big Data and Analytics, Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan. “In one fell swoop, the EU enacted, in the GDPR, the most impactful set of privacy regulations yet seen. The EU’s action will certainly enhance privacy protections for its citizens but its unintended consequence may be to limit economic growth across the region, with ripple effects around the globe,” said Cotrupe. “There is now a great sense of urgency for the private sector to get data privacy right. We believe technology solutions such as those being developed by Unifi can play a key role in helping companies prepare for full enforcement of the GDPR by providing data granularity and controls that can enable companies to begin the process of becoming GDPR-compliant.”
Unifi Software’s Compliance Data Hub with RegAlert! provides real-time monitoring of all data in use. If any user attempts to access data with GDPR attributes, RegAlert! immediately blocks the data set from further use and notifies the person of the potential regulatory infringement. The data steward is also notified and they can ascertain, through Unifi, who is trying to access it and then grant them either unconditional or restricted access.
With built-in row and column level security features, data stewards and compliance officers can easily obscure the actual values in fields that fall under the restrictions of use and still let analysts access the data. For example, if a user at a global online travel site wanted to compare recent activity of a new direct route between a smaller airport in New England and Germany, to a connecting route through a major hub, Unifi would give the user a count of people that chose the new route instead of one with a previous connection, but not drill down to see their names. Another significant advantage of the Unifi Data Hub is the comprehensive data lineage features. Most GDPR breaches are likely to happen from derived data sets rather than source data. Unifi’s lineage capabilities highlight derived data sets that contain GDPR data.
Financial services companies with offices in the US and clients around the world, know full well the challenges associated with compliance. Central banks, credit unions, retail and commercial banks, and brokerage firms all operate within a highly stringent regulatory environment where the financial penalties for lack of compliance can be crushing to a business,” said Sean Keenan, Co-Founder and Vice President of Product, Unifi Software. “The challenge for many of those institutions is the reliance on IT to navigate through all of the disparate data sources and deliver accurate and timely analytics in order to meet those fiduciary compliance requirements. With a Unifi Compliance Data Hub, compliance and legal business analysts can now have access to data assets without IT involvement and can quickly verify transactions or identify potentially illegal transactions.”
Sign up for the free insideAI News newsletter.
Speak Your Mind