Ben Mitchell explains the right way to manage and protect personal data stored in Dropbox Business. 

The GDPR is the biggest overhaul of European data protection regulations within the last two decades. It has changed how businesses store, manage, and use personal data. And the changes don’t just affect European businesses – they apply to any organization that has European clients, employees, partners, and offices.

The biggest risk to compliance

Businesses have encountered the problem of ‘dark data’ early in the process of becoming GDPR-compliant. Dark data is non-searchable files, like a scanned PDF document, which doesn’t have a text layer and is, therefore, an image file. Many organizations scan copies of client passports and household bills and keep them as ‘proof of identity’ documents. These, essentially, become non-searchable personal data in Dropbox Business and pose a significant risk.

Preventing data breaches

If non-searchable files go missing or end up being filed in the wrong place in Dropbox Business, they could end up part of a data breach. When organizations don’t apply all necessary protections to personal data, and a breach occurs, they can be hit with a financial penalty of 4% of global revenue or 20,000,000 Euros – whichever is highest.  

Handling Data Subject Access Requests

Ex-employees, current employees, and clients have greater rights under the GDPR to see their personal data held by a business or to have it deleted. These rights are exercised as Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs). Providing data in response to a DSAR when it isn’t searchable will be nearly impossible, and if the data subject knows it exists, it could lead to an expensive dispute.

Uncovering non-searchable data

The most thorough way of locating and converting non-searchable files to text-searchable PDFs in Dropbox Business is with an automated Optical Character Recognition (OCR) solution. Working in the background and without any impact on staff productivity, the solution can crawl through files and identify non-searchable documents requiring OCR processing. OCR technology applies a text layer to the files, so they can be searched for using Dropbox’s search tool.  

As a result, Dropbox Business users can make educated choices about whether to delete the documents or, if they need to be kept, file them in the appropriate place with all necessary protections applied.

Discover the best OCR solution to make Dropbox and Dropbox Business files text-searchable.

About the author

Ben Mitchell is the Global Head of Commercial Operations. Ben is responsible for managing all DocsCorp’s operations globally from its London office. Ben is a seasoned sales professional with an extensive 20-year history of managing and building sales organizations in the technology industry.