Information management data disposal maintenance overview

A housing organisation's obligation under GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) extends to the volume of data that is stored on an individual and the period over which this information is retained - referred to as data minimisation. In essence, personal data should be kept for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is being processed, with the precise timeframe for retention being established by the data controller, and limited to a strict minimum.

Also known as 'right to be forgotten', a further GDPR principle sets out the right for individuals to have their data erased, either through a verbal or written request. This would be applicable in circumstances where the original purpose for collecting or processing the personal data is no longer valid.

Both these data processing responsibilities can be fulfilled through the Information Management module, where the configuration and execution of record management batches will enable individual contact records that have been identified for disposal to be anonymised. Steered by complementary scheduled events, a series of targeted and customised rules will automatically consolidate matching contact records into batches, and then execute the formal 'disposal' process within the live database at the appointed time, subject to approval.

To maintain the integrity and operational capability of the Civica Cx Housing database, once the applicable retention period has expired, all unique identifiers intrinsic within individual contact records can be replaced. To facilitate this, a subset of system parameters are available to store 'synthetic' data values, these being used repeatedly to erase those single pieces of information that uniquely identify real contacts, as detailed in the table below.

Separate help articles have been created for each key aspect of information management data disposal maintenance, including:

• To create a new data disposal rule
• To create a new manual disposal batch