Written by a human
In financial services archiving, data privacy and security are two of the most important factors, largely because of the historic lack of trust in the industry.
For healthcare data archiving, the cost of compliance is a prominent challenge, especially due to rising medicine and machinery costs which can make compliance a lower priority in the budget.
And finally, government archiving is burdened with regulatory complexities, including analytics, reporting, and storage tasks that are outside of normal workflows. This can create tech integration nightmares, especially with regards to legacy systems.
But without specific and tailored archiving solutions, companies will continue to address their industry-specific needs and face the onslaught of enforcement actions. Can you really continue to operate at risk of fines, audits, and delays?
Why does industry-specific archiving matter?
Industry-specific archiving refers to RegTech solutions with data capture and storage abilities that are customized to follow certain rules. Requirements are different and depend on the industry you’re in, so firms should be able to tailor their archiving solution to their own situation.
For example, FINRA rule 3110 requires firms to “design a supervisory system that is ‘reasonably designed’ to achieve compliance with applicable regulations”. Records must be accurately stored for a period of three years, and must be inspected on at least an annual basis.
Instead, HIPAA requires all US healthcare providers to archive emails that contain sensitive personally identifiable information for a period of six years, as well as implementing access controls and disaster recovery plans.
And GDPR, applying to all businesses operating in the UK and EU is a more fluid regulation, with requirements to edit and delete data at the subject’s request. This must be stored securely without a specific retention period, because the data must only be kept for as long as it’s necessary.
Clearly, each of these cases requires different programming requirements for data collecting and archiving solutions, which is why industry-specific archiving is so critical.
Challenges in cross-industry archiving
Data silos
Attempting to capture diverse types of data can be painful, particularly for analysis and reporting. When different data types are collected, they’re often formatted completely uniquely from each other.
For example, SMS records require date, time, sender and receiver labels, but patient records need detailed entries on conditions, medications, side effects etc.
This means that getting the full picture requires several intermediary steps to treat the data and make it uniform to be able to understand and compare.
Security
Strict security measures are in place across all sectors, but they are not the same. For companies operating across healthcare, finance and law, for example, data must be kept separate and treated according to the specific regulations of that sector. In saying that, siloed data often leads to workflow inefficiencies and operational challenges, as this adds friction.
Internal Controls
Internal controls best practices also vary from sector to sector, with suspicious activity flagging in finance, for example, while government professionals must deal with surprise audits and litigation relating to their eDiscovery, while ensuring only the relevant data is shared.
Non-compliance
And then there are the risks of non-compliance. No matter which industry you’re operating in, failure to comply is likely to lead to fines, suspensions and reputational damage.
A notable example, archiving for financial advisors, includes FINRA’s $250,000 fine to a member firm for failure to preserve over 1.25 million electronic communications, the “vast majority of which” were marketing emails.
Benefits of having industry-specific archiving
It’s clear that the solution to each of these challenges is to work with industry-specific archiving, which can meet the demands of individual sector requirements and help teams comply with confidence.
Here are some of the benefits:
- Auditable archives provide a timeline of actions
- Streamlined platforms for tailored eDiscovery
- Secure and ongoing archiving can build good relationships with the regulators
Auditable archives
When a data archive solution is tailor made for a specific industry, it’s preset to meet the requirements of that industry. This means that the data that’s collected can be automatically processed into the right format, making it easy for auditors to search and scan as needed.
In financial services, for example, Global Relay’s archive solution can be locked against edits after the data is captured, following the write once, read many (worm) protocol.
Alternatively, ongoing developments such as new conditions or symptoms may need to be recorded on top of a patient’s medical files, so an industry-specific archiving system would include access controls, to ensure that the person editing the file is approved, and tracked changes show what had been edited. This could hold members of staff accountable for their actions and easily point auditors in the right direction upon inspection or investigation.
Streamlining
A targeted archiving solution can enhance many of the processes you’re undergoing on a daily or weekly basis, driving efficiency within the business.
For example, legal professionals can use Global Relay’s eDiscovery suite to put their cases together quickly, with help from AI to find the right documents when they’re needed. The platform assesses documents efficiently by using a combination of embedded analytics, visualizations, and AI models to spot patterns, detect anomalies, and quickly drill down to relevant information.
Legal archiving solutions provide huge operational benefits, making the eDiscovery process quicker, and reducing human resource costs for otherwise manual work.
Secure, ongoing monitoring
Data archiving solutions that are aimed at just a single industry can keep data more secure, due to focused expertise, specialized security measures, and adherence to industry-specific regulations.
Make headway with the regulators knowing it’s all done for you by a provider that solely exists to keep your data safe, like Global Relay.
Sure, you could try to build it yourself, but internal development requires a big budget, years of trial and error, and complex stakeholder management. By storing data offsite in secure premises, you can reduce the risks when cybercriminals target your data.
Opt for personalized over generic data archiving solution
Each industry has an absolute need for a specific data archiving solution to match regulations and avoid penalties.
In financial services, it’s about data security. Under healthcare data archiving and supervision rules, companies need to focus on HIPAA’s complex compliance patient record requirements. And in the legal profession, getting to the right document within eDiscovery quickly is the priority. That’s only the tip of the iceberg!
To learn more about how Global Relay’s data archiving solution can be tailored to your business needs, get in touch with our team for a demo.