Regulated industries don’t archive interactions only to meet regulatory obligations. They also rely on captured and stored information to support legal cases, meet data privacy requirements, detail authorisations received and solve customer issues.
This means all these interactions across multiple platforms, formats and apps need to be quickly and accurately returned in user queries.
This requires new approaches to accelerate search across the entire data estate. Advances are also being made in how data is presented, so they can be consumed simply and efficiently.
“Compliance requirements mandate that data has to be stored, but organisations shouldn’t miss the opportunity to do more with that data,” says Shaun Hurst, Principal Regulatory Advisor at Smarsh. “You need to be able to access it and discover information within the data, but the more you have the harder it is to do that.”
There are additional complexities to consider. For example, regulated sectors have supervision or surveillance and legal and data protection requirements.
“You have to supervise your regulated individuals,” says Hurst. “We have a platform that allows you to achieve this very quickly. That’s important because the faster the technology can go through and act on information as it comes, the better the supervision and avoidance of financial or reputational risks.”
Large firms have mobile teams of litigants working on ongoing cases, so being able to discover interactions or content quickly is essential. In addition, regulators tend to view organisations that can respond rapidly to requests favourably.
This need for speed is also reflected in General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance, which mandates a response within 48 hours to requests for data.
“That’s for the request to be acknowledged, not necessarily fulfilled,” says Hurst. “You can say it will take a further 48 hours to deliver a response, which is fine. But if you give no response, you can be fined by the regulator.”
