In 2020, the Dutch Data Protection Authority received no fewer than 23,976 data breach notifications. This puts the Netherlands ahead of Germany in terms of the number of reports in Europe. This stat means there’s still a lot of work to be done!
Although people often think of hackers with criminal intentions when they think of data breaches, in reality, they are often caused by human error. A data breach is actually nothing more than sensitive data that ends up in a place where it does not belong. This could be due to an e-mail going to the wrong person, or a postal item that’s been incorrectly addressed, or e-mail attachments that contain data from third parties. The first two examples are caused by carelessness which may arise, for example, in busy work places. The last example seems easy to resolve, but in reality, can be challenging.
When you send any files via email, they should always be checked thoroughly for any sensitive data. In doing so, you must consider whether the recipient is allowed to view this information, and whether redaction is required or not. This is of course is manageable with a single text file, but what if you regularly have to send out many files in various file formats?
Firstly, it can be very time consuming to read every file page by page, scanning them for certain terms, numbers, names, or other sensitive data. Secondly, not everyone has the software to edit any text content easily. Let alone if parts of images need to be redacted.
What’s the solution?
For the past two years in the Netherlands, we have worked closely with law firms, large corporate DPOs, local authorities and healthcare organizations to understand their challenges around this issue. We quickly realized we needed to develop an easy and straightforward workflow to support users in making their files General Data Protection Regulation (AVG) proof.
We developed Nalytics Search & Redact (NSR) as a straightforward solution for this problem. Within this cloud-based solution you follow a few simple steps, after which you automatically download a zipped folder. The software makes sure the data is ready to be sent.
How does it work?
Step 1 – You select the dataset, which you can optionally filter using our search engine.
Step 2 – You then select the terms you would like to remove from the dataset. This may include personal names, email addresses, countries, medical terms, legal terms and professions. The Nalytics Search & Redact also offers you the option to enter words or sentences yourself, which the solution will then automatically edit.
Step 3 – You can check all files in a preview screen. You are able to be even more precise with which words you would like to edit, and which ones you don’t. You can also hide for example, photos, signatures, or entire paragraphs.
Step 4 – When you are completely satisfied, the entire dataset can be downloaded. It is now free of sensitive information and ready to be sent to the party in question.
Read more about our Nalytics Search & Redact solution, or arrange a demo to find out how it could help your organization.
