Under Redaction! Why Companies Can’t Seem To Get It Right When It Comes To Recorded Data

Another day, another enterprise giant being forced to admit that sensitive customer data may have been improperly monitored or used without consent. In this latest instance, it was a case of outside contractors listening to user recordings without their knowledge. Yet, this is far from a standalone event when it comes to the privacy of sensitive customer data captured through voice channels or text.

Try as they might, tech companies and other enterprise businesses such as financial institutions and retailers, just can’t seem to secure sensitive customer information they’ve captured without it somehow becoming exposed. Therein lies the problem.

The single point of failure for all these institutions isn’t in the security of the information, but in the capturing of the data in the first place. A simple, yet often overlooked solution to data security in the contact center is to not record sensitive data. Sensitive personal data that is not captured or transcribed into text records cannot be stolen, leaked or somehow misused thus putting the company in the unenviable position of being outside of compliance or being forced to conduct damage control with an angry customer base.

By introducing redaction technology into your contact center or voice capturing technology you can ensure sensitive data removal for voice and text-based communications. Share transcribed calls and audio with secure confidence in and beyond the contact center that sensitive personal information has been removed. Ensure automated PCI compliance for audio and text-based interactions because sensitive numeric data is removed for post-call, real-time and archived historical interactions.

Why Redact?

Many regulatory standards require organizations to capture recordings. In addition, both companies and consumers benefit greatly from capturing the voice of the customer. This allows them to analyze information and adjust how they respond and work with customers to deliver a more efficient and positive customer experience.

However, there is risk associated with the capturing of sensitive customer data. Once you capture information, it becomes your responsibility. You are immediately in charge of security, ensuring compliance and are on the hook for all the associated costs and risks that come with it.

To give you a sense of how widespread the issue is, a recent survey of contact center agents for a large enterprise bank found that more than 55% of agents confirmed that customers share credit or debit card information with them over the phone. It doesn’t take long to consider how many financial institutions issue credit and debit cards and how many agents they employ to realize just how big the potential for a problem are.

Key Benefits of Redaction Technology

There are many benefits to implementing redaction technology in your operations. Here are a few bound to get the attention of your compliance, risk and security teams.

• Identify and remove sensitive numeric data with sophisticated redaction algorithms without customer or agent impact
• Reduce legal exposure and compliance risk through automated redaction for both post-contact and real-time interactions
• Adapt to evolving call volumes and metadata with scalable, cloud-based platform

Different Methods of Redaction Technology

Not all redaction technology is the same and not every organization has the same redaction needs. At a high-level, CallMiner offers the following solutions:

• Full Redaction: Remove all numbers from transcript and call audio where two or more numbers are found in sequence
• Targeted Redaction: Remove all identifiable numbers except those associated to a standard set of specific identifiable keywords
• Custom Redaction: Remove all identifiable numbers except those associated to a custom set of specific identifiable keywords

Looking to avoid an embarrassing or costly mistake when it comes to recorded customer data? Take a look at how CallMiner can help design a redaction strategy for your business.