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Help Your Clients Identify Data Privacy and Retention Problems
September 9, 2021
Today's TechnoLawyer Buyer's Guide report covers a web application that walks company managers through a survey about the data under their control, the results of which help outside counsel identify compliance problems and create defensible policies.
Help Your Clients Identify Data Privacy and Retention Problems and Then Create a Policy They Can Implement
A perfect storm now exists in which your corporate clients struggle to manage and secure their exponentially growing data just as governments impose new compliance regulations and data breaches become more severe. Before you can advise your clients on data privacy and retention policies, they must first conduct a data inventory audit. Normally, this process takes six or more months and costs upwards of $500,000. But a software alternative requires only 45-60 days and costs as little as $25,000.
Exterro Data Inventory in One Sentence
Exterro Data Inventory is a web application that walks company managers through a survey about the data under their control, the results of which help outside counsel identify compliance problems and create defensible policies.
The Killer Feature
Internal investigations make sense for rare situations. However, all companies face the same data regulations and security threats, and benefit from data governance best practices. Given these similarities, Exterro realized that companies could save money and time by having interactive software conduct data inventory audits instead of pricy consultants.
"With Exterro's platform, I have up-to-date data inventory with retention schedules, and the platform just ties them together nicely," says Amy Oliveras. Manager of Corporate Governance & Compliance at Blount International. "You have all the elements you need to comply under the GDPR and other privacy frameworks."
While Exterro Data Inventory streamlines the data inventory process, it's not a one-size-fits-all service. In-house and outside counsel work with Exterro to identify applicable departments and Profiling Participants (those who take the surveys), and customize the Question Sets (more on these below) that comprise the surveys. Exterro uses its years of historical data across various industries to make recommendations on what to include.
When all participants complete the surveys, you can generate 20 different reports and create your own custom reports to analyze the results and create policies. A related product — Exterro Data Retention — can create data retention schedules that enforce the policies you create for your clients.
"Exterro Data Inventory empowers law firms to help their clients rapidly develop a robust Data Inventory in 60 days or less," says Exterro Director of Strategic Partnerships Rebecca Perry. "We bring together automation, regulatory frameworks, proven standards, and best practices in one platform and eliminate the headaches and uncertainty of manual, disruptive approaches."
Exterro Data Inventory offers 20 reports such as this one that enable you to identify problems and create data privacy and retention policies.
Other Notable Features
Each survey takes 45-90 minutes to complete. Participants can save their progress at any point if they need to do some legwork to find an answer. You and other administrators can review each participant's progress, identify errors, and edit survey answers.
The Question Sets cover all data types, data storage, and related issues such as technical safeguards. Exterro has developed best practices by country, industry, and department to prevent survey participants from encountering irrelevant questions. For example, human resources managers will not have to answer questions about data in the company's accounting or marketing software.
As Oliveras intimated, Question Sets can incorporate the requirements of major laws such as GDPR and CCPA, including Records of Processing Activity (ROPA) for customer and other personal data.
Exterro Data Inventory stores survey answers for reuse, making it easier to conduct a data inventory on a regular basis and when material changes occur such as an acquisition or a new regulation.
What Else Should You Know?
Exterro stresses that Exterro Data Inventory doesn't exist as a gotcha exercise but rather as the first step in creating a defensible data privacy and retention policy. Many problems identified by Exterro Data Inventory involve data storage — paper, USB drives, old file servers, cloud storage services, personal email accounts, etc. These problems are easy to rectify once identified.
Neil J. Squillante is the founder and publisher of TechnoLawyer, an award-winning network of free email newsletters for lawyers and law office administrators. Many consider TechnoLawyer newsletters the only ones they need. A Fastcase 50 award winner, Neil has a long track record of inventing successful advertising and publishing technologies and related best practices. Previously, Neil practiced commercial litigation at Am Law 100 firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. He received his J.D. from UCLA School of Law and his B.A. from Duke University. At UCLA, Neil served as a Managing Editor of UCLA Law Review.
