Data protection in business intelligence – SDC solution with Exasol

In a data-driven business world, business intelligence and rapid data analysis are crucial to a company's success. At the same time, data protection and information security requirements are increasing – especially when it comes to sensitive information. Companies in the healthcare, competitive analysis and public sectors must ensure that analyses cannot be used to draw conclusions about individual persons or companies. The more detailed the evaluation, the higher the risk that specific information about individual competitors can be derived. This not only violates data protection guidelines, but can also reveal strategic business secrets.

This is exactly where we at iRIX come in: our Statistical Disclosure Control (SDC) solution, based on the Exasol pre-processor, protects confidential data directly at the database level – even before it is displayed in BI tools such as Power BI, Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud.With the SDC library we have developed, all BI queries are automatically checked against two data protection rules:

If a query violates these rules, the database will not return any results – regardless of who is making the query or which business intelligence tool is being used.

Since the check runs entirely on the Exasol database, there is no need for any post-processing. This means that data protection is seamlessly integrated into the analysis process.

Our solution has been successfully tested in a highly sensitive data environment. It is suitable for any industry where data anonymisation and protection of confidential information are essential, including:

• Healthcare

• Finance and insurance industry

• Market and opinion research

• Telecommunikations

• Public sector and statistical authorities

• Transport and mobility services

• Energy and utilities industry

• Educational and research institutions

Data security and analytical freedom can be perfectly combined when the technological basis is right. With our SDC approach based on Exasol, companies can make informed, data-driven decisions even in highly regulated or competitive markets – without compromising data protection or confidentiality.