Breakwater, a leader in data risk management solutions, today announced the launch of an efficient, cost-effective privacy solution for companies that need to manage unstructured data stored either in the cloud or on-premises systems. Many organizations continue to struggle with the myriad of privacy obligations as existing options are costly and complex. To meet the needs of customers, Breakwater has brought to market a solution that combines foundational capabilities with the “how to” knowledge to help companies move beyond unactionable policies.
Breakwater Data Privacy as a Service (DPaaS) allows companies to discover, analyze, and protect data from privacy risks with a solution that combines modern data discovery and management platform, an implementation methodology designed by Breakwater’s privacy experts, and operational processes designed by Breakwater’s managed services team. Standard operational models are supported, from self-service to managed assistance to full operational management by Breakwater or one of its managed services partners (MSPs).
The solution helps customers understand and prioritize areas of privacy risk, allowing a more efficient approach to remediation efforts. Automation for the solution is provided by Breakwater Privacy, an application built on the Breakwater Governance Cloud platform. Breakwater Privacy enables customers to identify high-risk personal and sensitive information and remediate data privacy concerns by connecting to multiple unstructured data sources and leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to sample and segment data targeting hot spots. Problematic data can be grouped, and policy-driven actions like Quarantine, Delete, and Append Names can be applied. Encryption will soon be available. These capabilities also benefit proactive cybersecurity by protecting or removing files containing sensitive information that may be compromised during a cyber incident.
“Data volumes continue to expand at an unsustainable rate,” said Ryan O’Leary, Research Director, Privacy and Legal Technology, IDC. “Expanding data volumes coupled with strong data privacy regimes popping up around the globe require organizations to focus on their data privacy compliance activities. Enterprises need to carry out their privacy compliance activities and still run their business. Enterprises will need to partner with technology and data privacy experts like Breakwater Solutions to augment their internal processes to be successful in the new data privacy conscious business climate.”
A more efficient approach to privacy
Breakwater Privacy is designed to simplify the implementation and ongoing operation of the fundamental data protection functions for unstructured data within an organization. Breakwater Privacy supports four foundational aspects of a privacy program:
- Privacy Risk Assessment
- Data Profiling and Classification
- Risk Mitigation and Data Minimization
- Data Migration and Localization
Key capabilities that make Breakwater Privacy different include:
Playbooks that accelerate implementation and optimize the operation
Breakwater provides best practices designed by experienced industry professionals in privacy, information governance, and cyber security to help customers move from planning to operation. Breakwater’s privacy playbook helps align requirements and processes, enabling technology to drive automation. Combined with a privacy runbook that provides detailed operational instructions, customers can use this expert knowledge to rapidly deploy and operate Breakwater-delivered solutions either by themselves, in partnership with their managed service providers (MSPs), or with assistance directly from Breakwater.
A new approach to analyzing data using AI segmentation and sampling
Breakwater Privacy changes the approach to data privacy by providing a practical methodology for identifying and prioritizing data stores with high volumes of sensitive data and personally identifiable information (PII) through AI segmentation and sampling. AI segmentation is the process of creating the equivalent of a fingerprint of files that contain sensitive personal data and PII. Sampling is the process of evaluating a select number of files out of an entire corpus and extrapolating the analysis to the larger data set with a level of confidence. Combined, these techniques provide the fastest method to profile and reduce risk in large volumes of data.
Out-of-the-box categorizations
Breakwater provides a set of out-of-the-box categorizations to reduce the time and complexity of initiating a privacy program. These categorizations prioritize the discovery elements of sensitive information that are the riskiest. The categories cover Personal, Financial, Health, Employment & Biometric Data and can be utilized to help comply with multiple regulations, including CCPA, GDPR, LGPD, HIPPA, and PCI.
Flexible technology designed to make your IT experts say yes.
Breakwater Privacy runs on the Breakwater Governance Cloud, which can be implemented via all modern technology deployment models – multi-tenant SaaS, single-tenant public or private cloud, or on-premises. The platform scales to large enterprises through the deployment of decentralized processing nodes. Additionally, organizations can deploy the multi-tenant option with instances within individual regions in compliance with data localization requirements.
Designed by industry veterans
This new solution is driven by the former IBM information governance team, led by James Schellhase, with private equity funding from JLL Partners. Breakwater’s product team are experts in unstructured data management within the industry, having delivered solutions for information governance, privacy, compliance, and eDiscovery. This release marks their third enterprise-class unstructured data platform.
“Privacy compliance is constantly evolving with new regulations being discussed, debated, codified, and enacted. Therefore, as the legal and regulatory community strives to understand the impact of these new regulations, the regulators expect review, remediation, and ongoing reasonable efforts to become compliant,” said James Schellhase, Chief Executive Officer, Breakwater. “Our approach is to bridge the gap between regulations, technology, and the limited institutional knowledge and expertise most companies are able to attract to help our clients begin their journey to privacy compliance at a foundational level. With Breakwater Data Privacy as a Service and the knowledge of our consulting team, our clients can protect themselves and their customers by identifying and addressing the highest areas of risk.”
