Data Administrators: Protecting Customers’ Privacy

  By Scott Schumacher —

CDI Must Haves

Data administrators in the process of evaluating CDI systems should look for a solution that provides the best method for collecting and managing private data in a secure, sensitive and trustworthy way. Essential features and capabilities include:

• Central notification control: This provides the ability to configure and manage notices sent to users attempting to access personal records, and it enables enforcement, auditing and verification during the data-notice process.
• Flexible management: The CDI system should be able to enforce opt-in/opt-out rules, regardless of the platform used to gather preferences. It should support flexible privacy models (i.e., contact point or individual), and it should support age as a criterion for the enforcement of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
  
• Customer accessibility: Data administrators must be able to pinpoint exact locations of all customer-related data so they can provide individuals with access to their data within a reasonable period of time. Capabilities that assist in this process include real-time search capabilities for finding all data and providing a composite view, flexibility to decide how data can be viewed and a method for finding structured and unstructured data.
  
• Security for stored and shared data: CDI solutions that allow local storage of data enable individual divisions within an organization to retain control of their own data. Such solutions also enable administrators to define the extent of viewable data with a high degree of specificity — administrators can decide at the row and attribute level who can see what kind of data. Federated CDI models encrypt data in databases and logs, and they support encryption or hashing of data from source systems, enabling secure data sharing between trusted partners.

CDI solutions provide the framework for a comprehensive data-sharing strategy, which protects privacy and security. With today’s increased concern regarding confidentiality of personal information, robust CDI systems and data administrators provide a required infrastructure component to minimize security risks and protect personal privacy.

Scott Schumacher serves as chief scientist at Initiate Systems, where he is responsible for research and development of matching algorithms and the overall management of product development. He can be reached at editor@certmag.com. 

CertScope
Want to learn more about data administration? Just search the term at CertScope, CertMag.com’s search engine, and you’ll find hundreds of articles and Web sites on the topic.