Data privacy management firm TrustArc Inc. today announced a service that provides a single point of control for identifying and managing information that may be subject to privacy regulations.

Called PrivacyCentral, the hosted service simplifies management of privacy programs and reduces the need to reinvent the compliance wheel every time a regulation is introduced or modified.

Maintaining compliance with privacy regulations is an increasingly complex and laborious task for organizations that collect personal information. Some 80 countries have followed the European Union’s lead with its implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation in 2018 and numerous U.S. states have either implemented or are considering similar laws.

Businesses are becoming increasingly attuned to customers’ discomfort with privacy protection. A PriceWaterhouseCoopers study last year found that 90% of business leaders say building and maintaining customer trust will be a source of competitive advantage of the future. However, many organizations maintain manual compliance practices that are proving less and less effective in an increasingly complex landscape.

TrustArc calls PrivacyCentral “a centralized resource to guide organizations’ privacy priorities, planning, readiness and demonstration of compliance.” The platform includes real-time benchmarking capabilities that program managers can use to view and compare privacy status based on priorities the organization sets.

Automated guidance

The service conducts automated, intelligent assessments of company records, systems, and data against relevant laws and regulations and monitors for changes and updates using a team of human experts. Organizations populate a company profile that includes business information metadata such as operating regions. “PrivacyCentral automatically determines which privacy regulations apply to their company,” a spokesman said. “Tiered permissions enable businesses to add on additional laws as their business grows or as their privacy demands change. Metadata populated in PrivacyCentral is based on the customer’s business data.”

Setup takes just a few minutes after which the software runs a scan to determine which global privacy laws apply to the business. Users can add or link to existing policies, processes and procedures stored in a library. PrivacyCentral consolidates the gaps across laws and regulations into an action plan that provides a roadmap for planning, prioritizing, implementing, monitoring, reporting and benchmarking progress over time, the spokesman said.

As laws change, they are captured in an intelligence layer and algorithms automatically detect the changes.  Customers receive automated notification of new laws that affect them. Customizable reports are also generated to show progress.

The service doesn’t provide legal protection against privacy violations, the spokesman said. “Organizations remain responsible for their own compliance,” he said.

TrustArc will demonstrate the technology at its Privacy Risk Summit this week but it didn’t specify availability. Tiered pricing will apply.

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