Twin Announcements From Osano

Hello all, and happy Thursday!  

For Osano, it’s been a bit of a banner week. We’ve got two exciting announcements, both of which we discuss in detail in this press release. 

First, we’re pleased to announce the launch of a new Osano product: Osano Data Mapping. We truly believe this addition to the Osano platform will be a game-changer for many organizations. Mapping the systems and data stores that contain PI across your organization is an incredibly difficult task, and too many privacy professionals are forced to rely on:  

• manual spreadsheets and tables, 
• backlogged, general-purpose data analytics resources, and 
• "automated” solutions that leave a great deal of the heavy lifting to the privacy professional. 

Osano Data Mapping is a truly automated, privacy-focused data mapping solution that will set your organization up for success with downstream compliance activities, like DSARs, RoPAs, and more. For more details, check out our new Data Mapping product page. We’ll also be sending a follow-up product email in the near future that gets into specifics. 

Our second announcement is the launch of the Osano Privacy Program Maturity Model! This eBook provides a points-based method of evaluating your privacy program’s operational efficiency. It enables you to identify exactly what elements of your privacy program need attention and what steps can help you increase the maturity of your program. You’ll be hearing more about the maturity model and how it can help your organization in the near future, but if you’d like to explore it on your own, you can download a copy here. 

Okay, that’s enough about Osano—I’ll leave you to this week’s privacy news. Until next week! 

Best, 

Arlo 

Top Privacy Stories of the Week

Congressional Report Finds Meta and Tax Prep Companies “Recklessly” Shared Taxpayers’ Data 

Following a congressional report, it was revealed that tax prep companies—including H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer—installed tracking tools from Meta and Google without fully understanding how those tools might collect taxpayer data. As a result, millions of taxpayers’ data, including their names, income, filing status, and refund amounts, were shared with third parties without the taxpayer’s consent. 

Read more 

FTC investigating OpenAI on ChatGPT data collection and publication of false information 

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, over its data collection practices and the publication of false information. As a large language model, ChatGPT requires a huge corpus of data to run. This data may contain personal information obtained and processed without the data subjects’ consent. 

Read more 

California AG Seeks Information from California Employers on Compliance with CCPA/CPRA 

California Attorney General Rob Bonta recently initiated an investigative sweep, sending inquiry letters sent to large California employers requesting information on companies’ compliance with the CCPA/CPRA’s regulations regarding employees’ and job applicants’ personal data. 

Read more 

Machine-Learning Researchers Develop New Data Privacy Technique 

MIT researchers have developed a privacy metric they’re calling Probably Approximately Correct (PAC) Privacy and an algorithm based on this metric. Using a PAC algorithm, machine-learning experts can identify and introduce a minimal amount of random noise to machine-learning training data. The addition of random noise obfuscates and protects sensitive personal data that may be contained within the training set without creating an excessive, negative impact on the machine-learning model’s output. 

Read more 

FAQs: What US Companies Should Know About the New EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework 

The long-awaited replacement for the Privacy Shield has recently been approved by the EU Commission. What does this mean for businesses receiving and sending international data between the EU and U.S.? 

Read more 

Osano Press Release: Osano Launches Privacy Program Maturity Model and Announces Data Mapping Product 

We’re proud to announce two major developments here at Osano. First, we’ve launched a new product called Osano Data Mapping—with it, privacy professionals can automatically discover and classify personal data stores throughout their organization, saving them time and effort in supporting compliance for their organization. Second, Osano has developed a brand new privacy program maturity model. With it, you can score, evaluate, and benchmark your privacy program, identifying gaps and priorities in the process. Check out the press release for more information on both developments. 

Read more 

If you’re interested in working at Osano, check out our Careers page! Notably, we’re looking for a strategic, experienced, and empathetic individual to join our growing marketing team as Head of Product Marketing.