Tracewell · Data protection
GDPR requests and the personal data in your documents
When someone asks you to erase their data, removing the file is the easy part. Tracewell, the data-protection module built into Archystream, finds the person's data wherever a copy survives, handles the request within the legal deadline, and gives you a written account of what was done.
Where a deleted document lives on
- Earlier versions
- Copies
- Search index
- Caches
- Audit trail
- Backups
Tracewell erases the person from the first five and checks each one again afterwards. Backups cannot be changed in place: they expire on a stated date, and if one is restored, the erasure is applied again automatically.
Know where personal data is
Mark which fields of each document and folder type hold personal or sensitive data, such as health, bank or national ID details. A scheduled Trace sweep looks through text, metadata and file names for e-mail addresses, phone, IBAN, card and national ID numbers, and flags documents for review. It changes nothing and never stores the value it found.
Requests answered within the deadline
A person can ask to see their data (Reveal), correct it (Amend), erase it (Dissolve), limit its use (Restrain) or take it elsewhere (Carry). Each request runs on the deadline of the law you choose. The identifiers they give you are stored encrypted, kept out of links, logs and the audit trail, and destroyed once the request is closed.
Erasure that reaches every copy
Remove deletes the document with all its versions, copies, search entries, caches and audit values. Blur replaces the identifying details for good, with no key kept to reverse it, and blacks them out in the file itself — PDF, Office or text — for the Trace Warden to compare side by side. A second warden or a manager approves before anything is erased.
Proof you can send to the person
After the erasure, a verification report checks every store for anything left. The Clearance Statement, a letter in English, Romanian, German, Italian or French, tells the person what was searched, found and done — only what the check proves — and what cannot be erased at once, such as backups, with the date they expire.
Retention comes first
A contract or invoice you must keep by law is never deleted. Its details are anonymised and the original file is sealed: no one can open it, managers included. It is destroyed automatically when the retention period ends. Until then, a user can ask to see it, giving a reason, and a manager can grant that one user access for a limited time.
A record for the authority
A Purpose Charter of your processing, ready to export. Fade periods — how long data may be kept — with a report of what is due or overdue. A register of Exposure Events with each law's notification clocks, such as 72 hours under the GDPR. A dashboard and eleven reports built on counts, with no personal values in any export.
A sealed original, seen without handing over the file
When a manager grants access, the viewer shows each page as a picture drawn by the server. Every picture carries the viewer's name, the time and the grant. The file itself is never sent to the browser.
- A document of 160 pages opens in under a second.
- Download only if the manager allows it. The copy carries the same watermark, unless the manager deliberately hands out the exact original — for example, as evidence for a court.
- Every page viewed is recorded.
A watermark cannot stop a screenshot or a photo of the screen. It makes every copy traceable to the person and the grant behind it.
In the application
Tracewell dashboard
Open requests, deadlines, sweep results and pending approvals, shown as counts.
Holder requests
Every request with its kind, status, law and deadline. The register never shows identifiers.
Verification report
After an erasure, each store is checked again. Whatever has to wait is listed with its date.
Granting access
A manager grants one user access for a set period, and decides on download and watermark.
The terms you will see in the application
Tracewell gives the legal terms short names of its own. The screens above use them.
- Identity traces
- personal data
- Guarded traces
- sensitive personal data, such as health or national ID details
- Trace holder
- the person the data is about
- Trace Warden
- the role that handles privacy work, granted per repository
- Reveal · Amend · Carry
- requests to see, correct or take away one's data
- Dissolve · Restrain
- requests to erase data, or to limit its use
- Remove · Blur
- the two ways to erase: delete, or anonymise for good
- Purpose Charter
- your records of processing
- Ground
- the legal basis for processing
- Fade period
- how long data may be kept
- Exposure Event
- a data breach
- Clearance Statement
- the letter that closes an erasure request
Deadlines included for these laws
- GDPR (EU)
- UK GDPR
- nFADP (Switzerland)
- CCPA/CPRA (California)
- LGPD (Brazil)
- PIPEDA and Law 25 (Canada, Québec)
- PIPL (China)
- APPI (Japan)
- DPDP (India)
- PIPA (South Korea)
- PDPA (Singapore)
- POPIA (South Africa)
- Privacy Act (Australia)
These deadlines are defaults you can edit, not legal advice. Confirm them with your own counsel before you rely on them.
What Tracewell does not do
- It does not make you compliant on its own. It helps you meet the requirements. Whether you do is for you and your counsel to judge.
- It does not recognise names in running text. The sweep finds identifiers with a fixed form, such as e-mail addresses and account or ID numbers.
- It cannot prevent a screenshot. The watermark makes every copy traceable. It does not stop a photo of the screen.
- It cannot erase backups on the spot. They expire on the date the Clearance Statement gives. If one is restored, the erasure is applied again automatically from a separate erasure ledger.
See Archystream with your own documents
Tell us about your record series and we will walk you through a portal configured for them, including the description quality we measure on documents like yours.
Or write to us at [email protected]