Want to ensure compliance with your migration?

Challenges and trends

The pressure comes from several directions at once:

• Accelerating data proliferation: more systems, more connected devices and a bigger enterprise appetite for data.
• Increasing identity theft and hacking incidents.
• Global legal complexity regarding data protection and data privacy.
• Strategic moves to cloud platforms often present risks to data ownership.
• GDPR, CCPA and similar laws define specific data subject rights to enforce and accommodate.

Compliance risk over time

Compliance risk and overall data risk move in opposite directions as data ages: compliance risk is highest for recent records, the ones regulatory reports, audits and interfaces draw on, and declines as they age, while overall data risk rises the longer records stay accessible and exposed. As data ages, its risk profile changes significantly, posing unique challenges for enterprises managing large data sets.

HR: leading the charge in the data privacy revolution

Over the past decade, technological advancements have generated an unprecedented surge in enterprise data, particularly within Human Resources. This “people data,” critical for compliance and organizational decision-making, continues to grow exponentially. Despite many companies having data and document retention policies, enforcement is often inconsistent, leaving organizations vulnerable as governments introduce new data privacy regulations at an accelerating pace. For global companies, this complexity is even more pronounced.

Traditionally perceived as a cost center, HR is uniquely positioned to lead the transformation toward better data privacy practices. By embracing this challenge, HR can not only mitigate security risks but also enhance its strategic influence within the organization. Data privacy is a universal concern that captures the attention of boards and executive teams across all industries and geographies, creating a pivotal moment for HR to step forward as a leader.

HR as the guardian of the most sensitive data

HR systems house some of the most sensitive information within any organization: personal identifiers, financial details, and even family information. This data is a prime target for cyberattacks, with legacy HR systems and outdated employee portals often serving as weak points. Unlike payment data, which can be changed after a breach, personal data remains static, creating a long-term risk that can be exploited repeatedly.

HR’s responsibility for safeguarding sensitive data extends beyond traditional cybersecurity measures. While IT focuses on preventing external access to networks and assets, HR must ensure that application-level data access is rigorously restricted. Effective data privacy strategies should operate under the assumption that cybersecurity defenses may fail, emphasizing the importance of proactive data governance.

A strategic opportunity for HR

HR’s role in data privacy isn’t limited to risk mitigation. It is an opportunity to elevate its strategic importance. By integrating HR data with organizational analytics, HR can deliver valuable insights that extend beyond its function, answering critical questions such as:

• Where are security incidents occurring geographically, and which regions or offices are most affected?
• Which business functions pose the greatest risk for data security and privacy?
• Are terminated or high-risk individuals still accessing sensitive systems?

By leading the charge on data privacy, HR can drive transformative change, protect critical organizational assets, and position itself as a strategic partner in shaping the future of enterprise data governance. The time for HR to take the lead is now.

Data retirement and the PII lifecycle

Risk exposure of data is a function of volume (# of records), time accessible, and frequency accessed. It is complicated by the fact that individual countries are passing laws to limit data privacy risk and data retention faster than many companies and HR departments can adapt.

In the U.S. laws are often directed at minimum retention periods whereas in EU nations the laws are typically more limiting to maximum retention periods. This results in a complex data life cycle strategy for organizations where rules must be enforced for physical purging of certain data and documents typically based on an employee’s citizenship and/or work location.

Most regulatory reports, customer reports, and interfaces pull data only through the last 3 years of history while the older data remains idle in the system(s) without Analytics applications in place.

The average HRIS has a lifespan of 7-10 years. This results in 60-80% of the data (data that is greater than 3 years in age) sitting mostly unused for any reporting, but still facing even more risk than active data.

Unfortunately, because the data is viewed as “history” it is often dumped into data warehouses and unsecured databases since implementation partners and IT departments will not convert full history into transactional systems due to the additional workload and cost. In many cases the improvised security is insufficient to protect PII (Personally Identifiable Information). Often, users and corporate compliance departments are unaware of the underlying technical exposure.

How does Fuse help?

• Identification of PII (Personally Identifiable Information) in data and documents.
• Tagging of documents and data with retention policy rules.
• Consolidation and security of legacy and current data and documents in one archive.
• End-to-end PII lifecycle management, from import to purging of data and documents.
• Personal data management for terminated employees, including GDPR data portability and right-to-be-forgotten requests, via data subject rights self-service.

Fuse archives the history from UKG, ADP, Workday, SAP, Dayforce and Oracle systems, so the records an implementation team leaves out of the new system stay available for audits and data subject requests. See how the platform is protected on the security page, or where archiving fits in an HCM transformation.