There are many companies that handle hundreds of personal data that must be protected from any interference, by law. For this, there are processes such as anonymization and pseudonymization of data, which consist of eliminating those data to avoid the identification of people, reversibly or not, depending on the process used.
At Brait, we have created a solution to anonymize and pseudonymize personal data of any type of content that is in our OpenText content platform.
Reasons to anonymize data:
There are many reasons why data needs to be protected. We will explain some of them below:
- GDPR Compliance: the law requires keeping the essential personal data to provide services to clients, but delete it once they are not a client anymore (after a mínimum time for legal reasons). After this time, the company is obliged to delete said data or irreversibly anonymize it to comply with the law. In this case, we would have to opt for a data anonymization process, since it is an irreversible p rocess and therefore, the pseudonymization of data would not meet this requirement.
- Data security: although companies have security measures in place, many have suffered some kind of breach regarding the confidentiality or integrity of the data. That is why anonymization or pseudonymization should be considered as another layer of security that allows keeping data safe.
- Reputation: linked to the previous point, we must not forget the damage that a data breach can cause to a company, as happened to Equifax, whose shares fell by 13% after a security breach. Facebook would be another example – it’s value fell by more than $70 billion following investigations into the handling of user data. In addition to the economic damage that this causes to companies, it is important to also assess the damage it does to its reputation.
- Confidentiality: regulation dictates that companies must make proper use of documentation containing sensitive and confidential information, so it is essential to have a data anonymization or pseudonymization solution when sharing information and documents, both internally or with external companies. These solutions allow data validity to be maintained while protecting people’s private and confidential data.
- Data analytics: thanks to anonymization and pseudonymization of data, it is possible to use and exploit them to obtain all the necessary information that helps companies in making decisions without violating the GDPR, without giving up the extraction of behaviours, trends, correlations, etc.
- Sanctions: we must not forget the fines for breaching the GDPR. These can represent up to 4% of the company’s global annual income.
If you want to know more about our solution or about the process for data anonymization, do not hesitate to contact us. We will be happy to show you how it Works, and to share all the information you need.
