Use-Case GDPR, Art. 15 and 17 – Successfully find and delete customer data

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been in force in the European Union since May 2018. It stipulates how companies are allowed to collect and process personal data. In particular, Article 15 – the right of access by the data subject – and Article 17 – the right to erasure – pose challenges for companies.

Article 15 of GDPR gives a person the right to know what data pertaining to him or her a company holds and how it has been processed, and for what purposes this data processing has been carried out. Likewise, a person has the right to know which recipients their personal data has been or will be disclosed to. Finally, information must also be provided about the planned duration of data storage or the criteria for determining this duration. The company does not have an arbitrary amount of time to find this data either. The information needs to be provided within one month.

Companies often underestimate the ease and speed with which they can locate all the data stored about the person in question. The problem is that this information is often not stored in a single format in databases, but rather in unstructured form in e-mails, text documents or presentations. This means it can appear impossible to ensure that all the places where data about a person is stored by a company have actually been identified. As a result, the company is unable to meet the requirements of GDPR and risks consequences from the responsible data protection authorities.

Article 17 of GDPR, in turn, gives an individual the right to request immediate erasure of the data stored about him or her. Again, if the company cannot find all this data quickly enough, for example because it is stored in unstructured form and distributed across various directories, channels, tools and emails, it will not be able to meet the requirements of GDPR. In this case, the company puts itself at risk of having confirmed to a customer that their data has been deleted, even though information about them is still stored.

Aparavi solves the problem of finding and deleting personal data quickly and reliably with its Deep Intelligence Engine. The intelligent search engine specifically searches through unstructured data inventories, classifies all data relevant to data protection and uncovers it. This gives companies a complete overview of all data relating to a person with just a few clicks and allows them to delete it at the touch of a button in accordance with Article 17, GDPR.

Did you know that the topic described here is not only relevant for compliance with the GDPR? Careful data management and data economy also have a crucial importance for ecological, economic and social sustainability within the framework of corporate social responsibility.