EU’s new personal data regulation, GDPR, has in many ways raised the awareness of personal data protection. The Danish municipalities (among others) had been facing a major task trying to be compliant as of May 25, 2018, when the law officially came into force. But in Fredericia Municipality, preparations for GDPR were initiated a long time ago.

The municipality had previously had a desire to improve their system for logging data files. Long response times and inflexible solutions belonged to today’s order. “Not only was the system slow. It took too long to get a reply from the supplier if we had requests for changes. Furthermore, it was a very expensive and inflexible solution. We previously used CapMon for system monitoring tasks and asked if they could help us. CapMon returned with a very good offer. And to meet our challenges, they recommended their CapStash log management solution. Not only was the CapStash solution cheaper. It was also faster and far more flexible. But best of all, it uses the same interface as our previous solution.

Security for both citizens and employees

The CapStash solution gives Fredericia municipality an overview of all data traffic in the system. Thus, Thomas Saabye Goltermann and his colleagues in the IT department can at any time retrieve a log file and see who has access and what data they have accessed. “If for example, there is any suspicion of data leakage, we can now see who has accessed the data in question and when. It means security for both the citizens and their data, but also for employees who can quickly be kept out of suspicion, “says Thomas.

Better safety practices

Fredericia Municipality has saved money. CapStash is cheaper than the previous solution, while at the same time, it also saves time because the system can quickly generate log reports and retrieve data automatically. “This means that citizens can very quickly receive any requested data. We’ve got a far more flexible and intuitive system as well as improved safety routines than we had before, “says Thomas Saabye Goltermann

Automated processes with machine learning

The solution allows you to see data traffic in the system, but not the data itself. This ensures that only authorized personnel has access to the citizens’ personal data. The fewer who have access to citizens’ personal data, the easier it is in principle to secure them. CapStash also uses machine learning and can predict if traffic changes significantly and any attack on the system is on its way.

According to the GDPR legislation, in case of data breach, you should be able to document e.g. the data lost and the number of persons affected by the breach. “In a few minutes, CapStash can generate a log report to us documenting who has accessed data on the CICS. Previously it took the employees several hours – even up to one day to find the desired log report. In fact, we have set up the system to generate a random sample of traffic for three randomly selected employees and an arbitrary case once a month. In this way, we can keep an eye on the systems, “says Thomas Saabye Goltermann.

CapMon commenced the implementation of CapStash at Fredericia Municipality in the spring of 2017, and the automation of the system was added in February 2018.