Since GDPR was introduced there’s been an upsurge in the number of tools that are available to help you manage your privacy environment. Over the past several weeks our clients have been taking a closer look at some of these. but often they find that the number tools out there that claim to be supportive of GDPR, and many of them are, to be little confusing. While providing this support, many don’t necessarily match what our clients are looking for. So we provided a way to categorize the tools to make it easier our clients understand the privacy tools landscape.
Categories of tools
Privacy Ref looks at three categories of tools to support privacy. First we have the GRC tools that help manage governance, risk, and compliance across the entire enterprise. They are not only focused on privacy, but also examine and help manage all kinds of risk the enterprise might encounter. These tools absolutely support privacy, but the question is if you want to make an investment in a corporate wide tool or you want to stay focused on specific functions and operational areas.
This brings us to the second categories of tools. These Departmental tools focus on solving very specific items for specific areas of the organization. For example, there are number of tools out there that will help you with data discovery or data inventories that would fall into this category.
Finally, there are specific tools to assist the privacy office. These tools may focus on things such as privacy impact or data protection impact assessments. There are tools available to assist with data subjects rights requests. This category of tools may also assist with attestations, making sure that the different areas of your organization’s claims to be compliant with your privacy program and the laws can be backed up.
Remember the on-going costs
When reviewing tools you need to consider costs. In addition to the acquisition and implementation costs, you need to consider the on-going operational costs associated with each tool. Consider the costs associated with maintaining the tool, adding new functionality to the tool, and the costs to you business areas for using the tool as places to start.
Buy what you need
The attraction of technology to assist with the management of your privacy program is alluring. When pondering what you need, think about the category of tool you are looking for, how it will integrate into your existing business processes, and the on-going costs for maintaining the tool.