The buzz around “big data” raises concerns about the privacy of the massive amounts of data collected. One of our customers, a telecom company in the U.S. uses our software to collect more than 60 billion messages per day from over 40 different devices.

Where does this data go? How do companies ensure that personal information contained in these messages does not fall into the wrong hands?

In Europe, these questions are of heightened importance. Germany and Switzerland (and soon the rest of the E.U.) legally require organizations to have strict data privacy modes on IT data they collect. The law places high value on protecting end user information that might be contained in IT data. For example, if an organization collects IT data that includes personal identifiable numbers like SSNs, those numbers would need to be blocked from users who are not authorized to access that particular information.

While these requirements are the law in Germany, the U.S. is expected to follow suit shortly. Many highly regulated industries are already facing such mandates. For example, one of LogLogic’s customers, an electric and gas utility, is required to not only collect and report on data as required for compliance, but also to ensure this collected data is only accessed by authorized users.

As of today, the security of personal information no longer needs to be a concern. We’ve introduced a new data privacy feature that allows an administrator to show or hide information that needs protection in their environment. To view this privileged information, two independent security key holders need to be engaged to “unlock” the user session. This, coupled with our new policy-based retention feature, ensures that companies can distinguish and save only the data needed to meet regulatory or policy concerns, thereby reducing storage requirements and associated costs while protecting the company from fines. Auf Wiedersehen data privacy concerns!

• Big Data and Privacy