8 Types of GDPR Tools and How to Choose

What Are GDPR Tools? 

GDPR tools are software solutions that help organizations comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a legal framework established by the European Union to protect personal data. These tools assist businesses in understanding, managing, and ensuring the privacy and protection of personal data. They cover various aspects of data protection, from data discovery to consent management, and aim to streamline compliance processes.

These tools are crucial for businesses that handle EU citizens’ personal data, enabling them to meet GDPR’s stringent requirements. They automate processes like data mapping, subject rights management, and breach reporting, reducing the risk of non-compliance penalties.

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Categories of GDPR Tools 

1. Data Discovery and Mapping Tools

Data discovery and mapping tools are the foundation of GDPR compliance, enabling organizations to locate and document all personal data they possess. These tools automate the task of mapping data flows across various systems and processes, ensuring awareness of data locations and movements. By using these tools, organizations can create a detailed inventory of personal data assets, which is crucial for compliance and data management.

Implementing data discovery tools reduces the risk of non-compliance by identifying unauthorized data storage or processing activities. It also aids in identifying potential vulnerabilities in data handling and developing strategies to mitigate risks. These tools often integrate with existing IT infrastructure, providing continuous monitoring and real-time updates to the data inventory.

2. Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) Tools

Data protection impact assessment (DPIA) tools assess and address privacy risks associated with data processing activities. These tools provide a structured approach to evaluate the impact of new projects or changes in data processing, identifying potential privacy issues early in the development process. They help organizations implement necessary controls and measures to minimize privacy risks, ensuring compliance with GDPR requirements.

DPIA tools guide users through a logical assessment process, offering templates and frameworks that standardize evaluations across projects. They include features for documenting decisions, recording risks, and suggesting mitigation strategies. By utilizing DPIA tools, businesses can demonstrate due diligence in identifying and mitigating privacy impacts, which is a key requirement under GDPR for high-risk processing activities.

3. Data Subject Rights Management Tools

Data subject rights management tools are crucial for managing requests related to individuals’ rights under GDPR, such as access, rectification, and erasure of personal data. These tools provide automated workflows for handling these requests efficiently, ensuring prompt responses within the regulatory timelines.

These tools facilitate tracking and documenting requests, offering transparency and accountability in how data subject inquiries are managed. They also integrate with other data management systems to streamline the retrieval, rectification, or deletion of data.

Tips from the expert

Steve Moore is Vice President and Chief Security Strategist at Exabeam, helping drive solutions for threat detection and advising customers on security programs and breach response. He is the host of the “The New CISO Podcast,” a Forbes Tech Council member, and Co-founder of TEN18 at Exabeam.

In my experience, here are tips that can help you better select and utilize GDPR tools for compliance:

Prioritize real-time monitoring and alerting capabilities: Ensure your GDPR tools offer real-time monitoring and alerting features. This capability helps you quickly identify and respond to potential data breaches or unauthorized access, minimizing compliance risks and enhancing incident response times.

Implement automated data retention and deletion policies: Utilize tools that can automate data retention and deletion based on predefined policies. Automating these processes ensures data is kept only as long as necessary and is deleted securely, helping maintain compliance with GDPR’s data minimization and retention requirements.

Leverage machine learning for advanced data discovery: Opt for GDPR tools that incorporate machine learning algorithms for data discovery. These advanced capabilities can identify patterns and uncover hidden data across unstructured environments, providing a more thorough inventory of personal data assets.

Use automated data classification to enhance data protection: Implement tools that automatically classify data based on sensitivity and privacy impact. Automated classification helps prioritize protection measures for high-risk data and streamlines compliance efforts by ensuring the correct handling of different data types.

Utilize tools with multi-jurisdictional compliance features: Opt for tools that offer compliance support beyond GDPR, such as other regional privacy regulations (e.g., CCPA, LGPD). Multi-jurisdictional tools simplify compliance management for businesses operating across multiple regions, ensuring consistency in privacy practices.

4. Consent Management Tools

Consent management tools collect, track, and manage user consents for data processing activities, a fundamental requirement under GDPR. These tools facilitate obtaining valid consent from data subjects, ensuring that consent is informed, explicit, and documented. They provide mechanisms to easily update, withdraw, or renew consent, ensuring compliance with evolving data protection obligations.

By automating consent collection and management, these tools help organizations maintain an accurate record of consent status across different platforms and interactions. They support organizations in demonstrating GDPR compliance during audits by providing detailed consent logs and histories.

Learn more in our detailed guide to GDPR cookie consent 

5. Data Encryption and Anonymization Tools

Data encryption and anonymization tools are critical for protecting personal data from unauthorized access and for maintaining data privacy under GDPR. Encryption tools convert sensitive information into unreadable formats for unauthorized users, ensuring data confidentiality during storage and transmission. Anonymization tools, meanwhile, permanently remove identifying elements, rendering data incapable of identifying individuals, thus facilitating safe data sharing and analysis.

Using these tools protects against data breaches and ensures compliance with GDPR’s data protection principles. Encryption provides an additional layer of security, making it difficult for unauthorized parties to access sensitive information. Anonymization supports data utility for business analytics without compromising individual privacy.

6. Breach Management and Incident Response Tools

Breach management and incident response tools are essential for promptly addressing data breaches and ensuring GDPR compliance. These tools offer structured frameworks for detecting, reporting, and mitigating breaches, reducing potential damage and adhering to regulatory reporting timelines. They automate the process of incident management by logging events, alerting relevant personnel, and providing pre-defined response protocols.

By implementing these tools, organizations can manage incident responses effectively, minimizing data breaches’ impact on both operations and public image. They enable swift identification of breach sources, support containment measures, and help in notifying affected individuals and authorities in a timely manner.

7. Third-Party Risk Management Tools

Third-party risk management tools assess and manage the risks associated with sharing personal data with external partners or vendors. These tools automate the evaluation of third-party compliance with GDPR, ensuring that external data processes meet regulatory standards. They provide monitoring and reporting features to continuously track the risk profiles of third parties.

By using these tools, organizations can identify potential compliance gaps and security risks in third-party relationships. They facilitate due diligence processes, supporting contractual and operational safeguards to protect personal data.

8. Compliance Monitoring and Reporting Tools

Compliance monitoring and reporting tools are integral for maintaining ongoing GDPR compliance. They provide oversight of data protection practices across an organization, automating the collection and analysis of compliance data. These tools generate regular reports and dashboards, offering insights into compliance status and highlighting areas needing improvement.

With features such as audit trails and automated alerts, compliance tools ensure continuous monitoring and prompt identification of compliance issues. They allow organizations to demonstrate adherence to GDPR practices during audits and reviews.

Best Practices for Selecting GDPR Tools 

Assess Your Organization’s Specific GDPR Requirements

Assessing specific GDPR requirements involves understanding the types of personal data processed and identifying potential risks associated with its handling. Organizations need to evaluate their data processes, determine the applicability of GDPR to their operations, and prioritize areas needing compliance support.

Companies benefit from conducting a thorough internal review of their data lifecycle, including collection, processing, storage, and disposal methods. This assessment provides clarity on the specific functions and capabilities needed from GDPR tools, ensuring a targeted and efficient compliance approach.

Evaluate Tool Features Against GDPR Requirements

Evaluating tool features against GDPR requirements is crucial in selecting the right compliance solutions. Organizations need to identify tools with capabilities that match specific GDPR mandates, such as data protection by design, consent management, and subject access requests. Assessing the functionality of these tools against GDPR’s technical and procedural criteria ensures support for compliance efforts.

This evaluation process involves a thorough comparison of tool features, checking for automation levels, integration capabilities, and reporting functionalities. It’s essential to choose tools that not only fulfill mandatory compliance tasks but also enhance operational efficiency.

Consider Interoperability and Integration

Considering interoperability and integration is vital for the seamless implementation of GDPR tools within existing IT ecosystems. Organizations should choose tools that easily integrate with their current systems and processes, ensuring smooth data flows and reducing disruptions. Prioritizing interoperability ensures that GDPR tools can communicate effectively with other platforms, enhancing data accuracy and operational efficiency.

Evaluating integration capabilities involves understanding the compatibility of proposed tools with existing software infrastructure, including databases, CRM systems, and data warehouses. Ensuring strong interoperability reduces implementation time and helps maintain consistent data governance practices.

Assess Scalability and Flexibility

Assessing scalability and flexibility is essential when selecting GDPR tools to ensure they can grow with the organization’s needs and adapt to changing regulatory landscapes. Scalable tools handle increases in data volume and complexity without compromising performance, catering to organizational expansion or evolving data processing activities.

Flexible tools support customization to fit specific business requirements and offer adaptability to updates in GDPR or new privacy laws. This flexibility ensures that organizations remain resilient in maintaining compliance amid regulatory changes.

GDPR Compliance with Exabeam

Exabeam helps organizations meet both the technological and operational requirements of GDPR including:

• External Threat Reduction: Exabeam works alongside existing security solutions, using machine learning and behavioral analytics to identify unusual activity that may be indicative of an adversary’s attempt to find and access data. Exabeam threat timelines combine events from anomalies and correlation rules to group events by user or device. 
• Internal Threat Reduction: Exabeam works alongside identity and access management solutions to prevent security incidents resulting from the accidental or malicious abuse of allocated permissions. By flagging activity that falls outside the norm for a given user, Exabeam helps to detect potential incidents that could lead to data theft. Ideal log sources mapped to use cases and the MITRE ATT&CK^Ⓡ framework show which tools in the security arsenal can combine to show the clearest picture of events.

Visualization and Dashboards: Exabeam offers clear compliance-based GDPR Dashboards for easy download, export, or emailing regularly in support of GDPR mandates and the needs of the data privacy officer.ect, use, and share their data. It applies to businesses that meet specified criteria, such as annual gross revenues exceeding $25 million, or handling data of 50,000 or more consumers, households, or devices.