Data compliance for Data Scientists

Key words: Personal Identifiable Information (PII), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), confidential data, anonymization.

Challenge

As a Data Scientist, I have a task to develop a ML-model for behavioral segmentation of book shop clients. It aims at introducing customer tiers to customize communication for each segment. During model developing I need confidential and personal information of my customer to attribute my tiers right. I do not know if I have to anonymize the data or I can use it as-is as my model will be used internally only.

Solution

The ODD Platform provides a PII-sensitive search mechanism to assist in identifying confidential data using tags, labels and metadata and, therefore, preventing potential monetary, legal or reputational losses.

Scenario

1. I start developing a new ML-model. Its data source has to have the following parameters: - customer age, gender, LTV (Lifetime Value), delivery address - customer payment details (card issuer, account's currency, card type) - transaction timestamp, payment type (card or cash) - preferred genres and authors

2. I find the following objects in the sources: - Dim_Customers: customer full name, date of birth, delivery address - Dim_Books: ISBN, author and genre - Dim_Cards: customer, card, card issuer name and currency - Fct_transactions: transaction date, book, payment type, transaction amount, quantity, currency, customer and card - Dim_currency: currency ISO3 code, currency name - Dim_payment_types: payment type, payment type description

3. I have designed ways of joining the above tables but do not know if I should anonymize any data.

4. I go to the ODD Platform and start searching for the tables I need.

5. I check objects’ tags, labels and metadata.

6. I find out that Dim_Customers and Dim_Cards objects cannot be stored. Customer full name, age, address and payment details should be anonymized as these are PII data protected by GDPR and PCI DSS.

Result: ML-model meets GDPR, PCI DSS and company’s compliance standards.