How Data Privacy Laws are Changing the Way Businesses Handle Unstructured Data

The volume of unstructured data has exploded over the last few years, comprising a significant portion of the data that is generated on a daily basis. With emails, social posts, images, videos and files, there is a wealth of unstructured data in any given business. That data might be sensitive, and it might be valuable to attackers; therefore it needs protecting.

This blog will explore the impact that data privacy regulations are having on how we should be handling unstructured data in the modern world when it comes to security and privacy.

The Nature of Unstructured Data

Unstructured data is data that, as the name suggests, lacks structure. Now, as you’d expect, this makes it inherently more complex to analyze and manage than structured data. What’s more, unstructured data is quite often stored in all manner of disparate systems, both on-premises and in the cloud, and the lack of consistent metadata can make it very difficult for businesses to understand where and what it is.

However, unstructured data is valuable. It can provide businesses with critical insights that structured data cannot. It is also valuable from an attackers perspective, as it can contain sensitive information that can be sold on the black market for profit.

The Rise of Data Privacy Regulations

In recent years, a wave of data privacy regulations have emerged worldwide, like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the Colorado Privacy Act (CDPA). These regulations focus on strengthening consumer control over their sensitive data, including information like health records, financial data, and political beliefs. They require companies to obtain clear consent before processing this data, give consumers rights to access and delete it, and implement strong security measures to protect it from breaches.

Building on existing regulations, proposed legislations like the Federal Privacy Law in the US and the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill in the UK aim to create even more comprehensive frameworks for data protection. These proposals seek to further empower consumers with rights to control and correct their personal information, while mandating stricter data security practices for businesses. Additionally, they aim to establish clearer rules for data breaches and how companies must notify consumers and rectify the situation.

Whilst there are many specific requirements for each data privacy law, there is some consistency in terms of how businesses should be handling their unstructured data. The main six requirements are as follows:

1. Data Minimization: Only collect data that is necessary for a specific purpose.
2. Consent: Obtain explicit consent from individuals before collecting and processing their data.
3. Right to Access: Provide individuals with the ability to access their data.
4. Right to Deletion: Allow individuals to request the deletion of their data.
5. Data Security: Implement robust security measures to protect data from breaches.
6. Transparency: Clearly inform individuals about how their data will be used.

Challenges in Managing Unstructured Data

Given the nature of unstructured data, complying with these regulations presents several challenges:

1. Data Identification and Classification: Unstructured data often contains hidden personal information. Identifying and classifying this data is a significant challenge due to its varied formats and lack of metadata.
2. Data Governance: Effective data governance frameworks are essential to manage unstructured data in compliance with privacy laws. This includes policies for data retention, access control, and data lifecycle management.
3. Data Security: Ensuring the security of unstructured data is more complex due to its diverse formats and storage locations. Implementing consistent security measures across all types of unstructured data stored both on-premises and in the cloud is crucial. Companies have to ensure that the vendors they choose to help them protect sensitive information provide the same level of protection across all data stores and types to avoid tech bloat and streamline management.
4. Data Access and Deletion: Providing mechanisms for individuals to access and request deletion of their unstructured data requires sophisticated data management tools capable of indexing and searching through large volumes of data.

Strategies for Compliance

To address these challenges, businesses are adopting several strategies:

1. Advanced Data Discovery and Classification Tools: Businesses are leveraging dedicated data discovery and classification tools to ensure they understand their sensitive data at the point of creation. When selecting data discovery and classification tools, companies should look for solutions that offer support for various data sources, are able identify personal information, and can categorize data based on sensitivity and compliance requirements.
2. Implementing Data Governance Frameworks: Establishing comprehensive data governance frameworks helps in managing data in compliance with privacy laws. This includes defining clear data retention policies, implement a policy of least privilege or zero trust, and maintaining detailed audit trails to monitor data usage.
3. Enhancing Data Security: Businesses are adopting encryption, tokenization, and other advanced security measures, such as data-centric audit and protection, to protect unstructured data. Data loss prevention (DLP) solutions are also being deployed to monitor and control the transfer of sensitive data.
4. Utilizing Data Lakes and Unified Storage Solutions: Data lakes and unified storage solutions enable businesses to centralize unstructured data, making it easier to manage and secure. These solutions often come with built-in compliance features, such as data masking and encryption.
5. Implementing Privacy by Design: Incorporating privacy principles into the design of data systems and processes from the outset helps ensure that privacy considerations are embedded in business operations. This includes designing systems to minimize data collection, ensure data anonymization, and facilitate data access and deletion requests.
6. Regular Audits and Assessments: Conducting regular data privacy audits and assessments helps businesses identify compliance gaps and take corrective actions. These audits involve reviewing data management practices, security measures, and compliance with privacy laws.

Using the above strategies can help businesses maintain compliance, protect sensitive information, and address the complexities of managing unstructured data in a regulatory environment.