Removing PII

[carlctm]

Hello,

We find on a few occasions a year we get some PII enter our Adobe Analytics instance via the Activity Map. We do have activity map exclusions in place but we find a product team may introduce something that contains PII and isn't in the exclusions. We are now left with a company requirement to remove the data. We do not have Adobe Ultimate and thus do not have the Data Repair API and employing Adobe Engineering Services can see disproportionate solution for what could only be a handful of cases depending how early we caught it. So couple of questions:

1. How have others dealt with this?

2. Is using the Privacy API a viable alternative? I'm conscious this will delete / forget the customer but will it leave the metrics for that customer in place? Visits etc?

Any suggestions / advice welcome!  

[salimj · Accepted solution]

There is a lot to consider here when it comes to PII, even for a small amount. In highly regulated industries such as government or banking, even a tiny amount of PII can result in significant penalty from regulatory bodies and auditors. You could "segment-out" the data, but it is still there and only glosses-over the underlying PII exposure.

That being said, there's no harm in getting a quote from Adobe Engineering, based on an initial audit conducted by your team. If you can give Adobe an idea of the impact of the PII in your report suite(s), they can give you an accurate quote. We have had to take this route before - and even this process was lengthy as it requires validation in a temporary report suite before Adobe "commits" the modifications.

Hope that helps a bit.