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  5. Openness vs. Privacy: The Important Role Data Redaction Plays In Data Privacy: Page 3 of 3
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Openness vs. Privacy: The Important Role Data Redaction Plays In Data Privacy: Page 3 of 3

Data privacy is a hot topic for all enterprises, both private and public, and data redaction often has an important role in these efforts. That said, redaction is a term that some IT organizations have never heard of. Even if they have, they would probably be hard pressed to define it or explain its importance to their organizations, but that situation is changing quickly as organizations realize that redaction offers a solution that balances the need for data openness with the need for data pri
DAVID HILL
June 17, 2010

Mesabi Musings
Many companies assume that software redaction is a nice-to-have rather than a must-have solution. Sadly, those organizations are living on borrowed time and the clock is ticking. Why? In the United States, the December 1, 2006 modifications to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure altered how ESI is managed in eDiscovery processes. That, followed by data privacy laws in many U.S. states and in the European Union, is rapidly changing the attitudes of organizations (including enterprises and governmental entities) which mistakenly believed that they actually "own" all their data and have the total ability to grant or deny access or use of selected information at all times. In short, that era has ended.

And as part of that process, enterprises must now add to the basic characteristics of data protection -- preservation, availability, responsiveness, and confidentiality -- the what and where of data. That means that they must know "what" information they have and "where" it is. Our concern from a redaction perspective is the "what" characteristic. Knowing "what" data you have in a generic sense, such as an e-mail repository, is not enough. Organizations must know at a fine-grained level -- such as the ability to look at the content inside an individual e-mail or attachment -- exactly what they have in order to meet compliance and eDiscovery requirements. (Of course, they also have to know when to redact.) This is the level where the benefits of redaction shine.

Can enterprises ignore the inevitable? Of course, but the old "ignorance of the law is no excuse" chestnut applies liberally and likely painfully. In other words, to borrow from the old Fram oil filter ads "you can pay now or you can pay later." Studied ignorance is also unnecessary, given the number of redaction solutions available. With that in mind, we suggest that this is a great time for organizations without software redaction solutions to examine and consider them.

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