10 Best GDPR Software Shortlist
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 32 tools reviewed.
There are seemingly countless GDPR software solutions available, so figuring out which is best for you is tough. You know you want to streamline the management of personal data, ensuring privacy and security—but now need to figure out which tool is the best fit. I've got you! In this post, I make things simple, leveraging my experience as a marketing expert, using dozens of different GDPR solutions, to bring you this shortlist of the best GDPR software overall.
What Is GDPR Software?
GDPR software is a specialized tool designed to help organizations comply with the General Data Protection Regulation, a comprehensive data protection law in the EU. The purpose is to streamline the process of managing personal data responsibly.
GDPR solutions aid in identifying, securing, and monitoring personal data, ensuring it's handled in line with legal requirements. Key features include data mapping, consent management, breach notification, and compliance reporting. This tool is essential for businesses to maintain data privacy, avoid legal penalties, and build trust with customers by safeguarding their personal information.
Overviews Of The 12 Best GDPR Software
Below, you’ll find my comparisons of the top GDPR software you can implement in your business.
Mitratech is a technology partner for enterprises who want solutions related to legal, risk & compliance and HR matters. It offers a variety of products that span a wide range of applications, including workflow automation, governance, and legal holds.
Why I picked Mitratech: I picked Mitratech for its comprehensive approach to data privacy and GDPR compliance. Their four main privacy solutions are ClusterSeven, DataStore, PolicyHub, and TAP. Through these, users can search for personal information located in hidden data assets across the enterprise, centralize all business-critical data in a repository, streamline policy management, and use workflow automation to accelerate key processes to handle consumer personal data requests, as well as other data privacy-related demands.
Mitratech Standout Features & Integrations
More than features, Mitratech has outstanding products that cover different aspects of GDPR. PolicyHub stood out for creating a compliance program that ensures you quickly create, approve, and communicate policies. The other product that got my attention was the Shadow IT Manager from ClusterSeven which shines a light on hidden, sensitive spreadsheets, applications, and data that lie out of IT’s control and pose a risk – letting you centralize that information in one inventory.
Integrations include e-signature software like Adobe Sign, DocuSign, and Secured Signing, as well as other technology solutions like BP Logix, MS Office, Okta, Salesforce, and Sisense.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Actionable insights through structured controls and risk information
- Thorough and customized installation process
- AI-enabled capabilities for GRC processes
Cons:
- Steep learning curve for beginners
- Product offering can be confusing
LogicGate helps businesses outline how they process personal data by helping them map risk management workflows.
Why I picked LogicGate: The platform offers GDPR compliance management tools, such as risk management data mapping, to enable tour businesses to meet GDPR requirements. By using LogicGate, you can ensure continued compliance by mapping, tracking, and monitoring data activities according to GDPR requirements. LogicGate offers customizable pre-built data mapping workflows to meet your unique requirements.
LogicGate Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include forms you can create to automate, collect, and store details and responses. LogicGate also offers email notifications that send alerts so you can promptly complete compliance tasks.
Integrations include connections with popular third-party applications to help you gain improved visibility into your business’s risks, such as CrowdStrike, DocuSign, Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, Okta, OpenAI, Power BI, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, and other software options. You can also use a paid Zapier account or the platform’s API to create custom integrations.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Easy to implement
- Excellent support team
- Completely customizable
Cons:
- The user interface needs improvement
- No area to test changes
Clym is an all-in-one compliance solution that helps marketing teams remain compliant with all global data privacy regulations and make websites more accessible.
Why I picked Clym: This tool is an all-in-one platform that helps your business remain compliant with GDPR data privacy regulations as well as other global laws. Clym is a flexible, scalable software that can manage your business’s cookie consent, data subject requests, and policy updates. It’s also customizable, allowing you to achieve GDPR compliance without significantly impacting your customers’ experiences while enabling you to prove compliance if approached by any regulatory authority.
Clym Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include accessibility capabilities that allow your customers to choose from multiple profiles that help make your website more accessible to them. Clym also offers a geo-location tool that provides compliant experiences that are unique to the regulations governing your customers’ location while also providing the opportunity to give a multi-lingual privacy experience.
Integrations include connections with standard business tools such as Google Analytics, Hotjar, HubSpot CRM, Intercom, Jira, Shopify, Smartlook, Vimeo, WordPress, Zendesk, and other software options.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Cost-effective
- Manages compliance worldwide
- Good package of features
Cons:
- No data mapping capabilities
- Steep learning curve
TrustArc offers advanced consent management tools to ensure marketing teams comply with diverse GDPR privacy laws.
Why I picked TrustArc: The platform consists of multiple modules and features that handle every aspect of GDPR compliance. This includes TrustArc’s advanced consent management that will help your team increase consumer trust and avoid compliance issues. The advanced consent manager tool is an adaptable solution that allows you to achieve website cookie compliance requirements from the GDPR while delivering a consistent consent experience.
TrustArc Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include a data inventory hub that helps your business create data flow maps and in-depth compliance reports to help manage risks. TrustArc also offers an assessment manager that enables you and your teams to conduct and oversee privacy assessments.
Integrations include a small number of connections with third-party applications, such as Dataguise, edX, Radar Privacy, and Sizmek Ad Suite.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Data flow manager maps data movement
- Helps users gain valuable knowledge
- Comprehensive reporting and data analysis
Cons:
- Customer support needs work
- Implementing the platform has a learning curve
Collibra helps marketing teams simplify data governance, assessment, and auditing to ensure they’re compliant with GDPR data protection policies.
Why I picked Collibra: I decided to add Collibra to this article because it provides multiple tools to ensure your business remains compliant with the GDPR. The platform can apply machine learning algorithms to help you discover and classify data that needs governance under the GDPR. Under the GDPR, your business is required to understand what personal data you possess, and Collibra can help you achieve this through its metadata graph feature that maps relationships among data categories, subject categories, and usage.
Collibra Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include data flow automation that generates a visual data flow map from the controller to the processor to enable privacy teams to support record processing requirements. Collibra can also help you conduct privacy assessments with customizable templates to address Article 35 requirements.
Integrations include native connections with an array of tools to build your data ecosystem, such as Google Looker, Informatica PowerCenter, Marketo, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power BI, Salesforce, SAP ERP, ServiceNow, Tableau, Workday, and other software options. Collibra also provides an API that enables businesses to connect the platform to their tech stacks.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- User-friendly interface
- Customizable workflows
- Comprehensive feature set
Cons:
- Some deployment challenges
- Steep learning curve
AvePoint Privacy Impact Assessment can help businesses get an overview of privacy compliance and satisfy GDPR requirements and standards.
Why I picked AvePoint Privacy Impact Assessment: The platform can help you understand where your business is when preparing for GDPR readiness. AvePoint Privacy Assessment enables you to implement privacy assessments by providing a centralized system with editable questionnaires that are pre-populated with relevant GDPR questions. The system then automates information collection, including following up with the parties responsible for each question, allowing you to assess risks and get recommendations for closing gaps.
AvePoint Privacy Impact Assessment Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include end-user reporting on website traffic, search usage, documentation, and active user access. AvePoint Privacy Impact Assessment also offers virtual machine backups to help you improve the protection of virtual elements.
Integrations include connections with third-party platforms such as Alvaria Engagement Analytics, DocAve, Meeting360, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Project360, Salesforce, ServiceNow, TeamBeats, and VisitStream.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Intuitive system
- Easily sets up business rules
- Simple deployment
Cons:
- Customer support needs work
- Not many integrations are available
BigID uses advanced machine learning and data intelligence to help businesses manage and secure sensitive data.
Why I picked BigID: The privacy regulations within the GDPR require your business to identify data related to individuals and be responsible for protecting that data. So, I added BigID to this list because it can help your company succeed in data protection and remediation, including protection monitoring and reporting who the information belongs to, where it’s from, and where it’s going. The platform also uses machine learning-based data discovery to classify all data and perform data risk scoring to measure risks based on different parameters such as data type, location, and residency.
BigID Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include privacy automation capabilities that help you handle end-to-end data fulfillment and reporting, allowing you to quickly locate all information on individuals across all data sources and identify personal and sensitive information. The platform also offers a governance suite that helps you perform reliable, professional, and scalable data governance to mitigate risk and give you a competitive advantage by building customer and stakeholder trust.
Integrations include connections with various software or solutions that enhance your GDPR tasks, such as Collibra, Confluent, Immuta, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, Snowflake, Splunk, Tableau, Wiz, and other software options. You can also use the platform’s API to create custom integrations.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Clear user interface
- Easy to use
- Enables high-level data protection
Cons:
- Customer support is difficult to reach
- Hard to get issues fixed quickly
WireWheel offers deep privacy expertise to help organizations quickly launch and expand programs through its privacy operations management capabilities.
Why I picked WireWheel: With WireWheel, your marketing team can enhance privacy operations through the platform’s privacy operations management features. Through these operations, you can deploy and manage privacy assessments to gather the proper information from people and systems to ensure complete privacy management and GDPR compliance. WireWheel’s privacy operations management also provides a central repository that holds your assessments and other vital reports you can view, download, or share.
WireWheel Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include branded data subject request intake forms to help you collect processing requests for access, correction, deletion, portability, and restriction. WireWheel also offers assessment management and automation to help you perform privacy impact assessments for high-risk processing.
Integrations include straightforward connections with tools and applications to ensure complete compliance across your organization, such as Airtable, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Marketo, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Smartsheet, Zendesk, Zoho CRM, and other software options. You can also use WireWheel’s API to create custom integrations with your current tech stack.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Flexible compliance templates
- Helpful customer support
- Excellent out-of-the-box capabilities
Cons:
- Some features can be buggy
- Sometimes slow to adapt to GDPR changes
Securiti.ai is an AI-driven solution that enables businesses to find sensitive information across multiple environments and sources.
Why I picked Securiti.ai: I added Securiti.ai to this article because it’s an AI-driven solution that helps your business meet GDPR compliance. Through the platform’s AI, you can meet compliance requirements through its data discovery, data subject request automation, documented accountability, and enhanced visibility. Afterward, your business can turn this information into efficient data processing activities and AI-driven process automation.
Securiti.ai Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include a customizable data subject rights request portal that you can use to create branded web forms to accept verified data and automate fulfillment initiation workflows after verified requests are received. The platform also helps you continuously monitor and track data against non-compliance to subject rights, security controls, or data residency to identify data flow risks.
Integrations include pre-built connectors that help your business automate GDPR compliance, such as Amplitude, Asana, Capsule CRM, Google Analytics, Mailchimp, SAP HANA, Smartsheet, SurveyMonkey, Zendesk, Zoho Docs, and other software options.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Prompt customer support
- User-friendly UI
- Comprehensive solution for complex data issues
Cons:
- Steep learning curve
- Scanning unstructured data sources needs improvement
Ethyca provides a high degree of process automation to help marketing teams comply with GDPR regulations and focus on more significant privacy tasks.
Why I picked Ethyca: The platform will help your business handle GDPR tasks by automating almost all complex data privacy requirements. With Ethyca, you can automate consent enforcement tasks, such as cookie scanning, third-party consent, and data sales consent; privacy requests via a built-in requests manager and preference center; data mapping sensitive information; and more. Through all of Ethyca’s capabilities, you can increase brand trust, automate privacy requests, and ensure proper consumer consent.
Ethyca Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include future control capabilities that future-proof policy enforcement during any GDPR changes. Ethyca also offers privacy intelligence tools with an enormous open-source privacy engineering platform with over 200,000 hours of privacy engineering knowledge.
Integrations include connections with top business systems to help you implement privacy throughout your marketing team. These integrations include tools such as Adobe Sign, Airtable, Basecamp, FreshBooks, Google Analytics, HubSpot, Intercom, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, QuickBooks, and other software options.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Automates complicated processes
- Easy to use
- Helpful customer support
Cons:
- Some documentation is incomplete
- Lengthy setup is required
The 10 Best GDPR Software Summary
| Tools | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| Mitratech | Pricing upon request | Website |
| LogicGate | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Clym | From $49/month | Website |
| TrustArc | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Collibra | Pricing upon request | Website |
| AvePoint Privacy Impact Assessment | Pricing upon request | Website |
| BigID | Pricing upon request | Website |
| WireWheel | Pricing upon request | Website |
| SECURITI.ai | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Ethyca | From $75/month | Website |
Compare Software Specs Side by Side
Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.
Compare SoftwareOther GDPR Compliance Software Options
There’s an enormous number of GDPR compliance tool options that are worth significant consideration. To help make this article more beneficial to you, I added the following relevant choices you can implement in your business.
- Spirion
Best for sensitive data management
- DPOrganizer
Best for identifying high-risk activities
- Termly
Best for small business GDPR compliance
- OneTrust
Best for controlling responsible data usage
- decube
Best for simplifying data governance
- Crownpeak Digital Experience Platform
Best for enterprise consent management
- DataGrail
Best for interactive GDPR compliance displays
- 1touch.io
Best for continuous traffic analysis
- ManageEngine
Best for building robust data workflows
- Privitar
Best for addressing privacy strategy gaps
- Osano
Best for scaling privacy programs
- Nightfall DLP
Best for data loss prevention
- ComplianceBoard
Best for vendor and third-party assessment
- Strike Graph
Best for achieving security certifications
- Skyflow
Best for verifying every data access request
- Pridatect
Best for creating tasks to mitigate risk
- Accountable
Best for establishing a compliance culture
- Privacypage
Best for creating branded privacy pages
- Drata
Best for collecting evidence of security controls
- Safetica
Best for security audits
- AuditBoard
Best for compliance issues and reports management
Selection Criteria For GDPR Software
So, what should you look out for when choosing GDPR compliance software? Here’s a short summary of the main selection and evaluation criteria I used to develop my list of the best GDPR software for this article:
Core Functionality
All GDPR compliance platforms will offer the same foundational capabilities that make it a GDPR software. When deciding the best options for this article, I looked for software with the following base functionality.
- Data management and mapping; this includes identifying and documenting what types of personal data are collected, processed, stored, and shared within the organization.
- Consent and rights management; helps organizations obtain and track user consent for data processing activities, ensuring that consent is freely given, specific, informed, and revocable.
Key Features
Here’s a list of the standard features you can find in GDPR software. This list will help you narrow down your search for the right platform.
- Data Management: Your organization can use this feature to securely collect and store data, track usage across departments, and quickly remove unwanted information; this offers comprehensive capabilities for managing consent details, authentication protocols, user rights management, and data removal options.
- Compliance Audits: Even if you’re confident your organization isn’t breaking any privacy laws, this can change in the future without anyone realizing it; GDPR software with compliance audit capabilities automatically runs checks through a built-in GDPR compliance checklist at regular intervals to ensure the company’s policies and practices are in line with the EU’s regulations and alert your legal team when it identifies problems.
- Data Protection: GDPR compliance software can protect sensitive data by providing encryption capabilities and other security methods, such as password protection and role-based access; it can ensure your organization abides by GDPR requirements for monitoring activities related to personal information.
- Security Reporting: Your team should always be aware of any data breaches that occur, and any GDPR solution with this feature will automatically send alerts if it discovers anything sinister happening with your system’s security protocols; this gives your team time to stop potential breaches before they happen.
- Data Anonymization: Web browser cookies track visitors the moment they access your website, and many organizations use the information collected from trackers for analysis - but the EU’s privacy regulation requires companies to clean this data as much as possible; GDPR applications with anonymization capabilities remove everything that links a specific user with data that describes them, leaving marketers free to examine usage statistics without sacrificing privacy.
- Pseudonymization: GDPR regulations provide alternatives to complete data anonymization if you have no choice but to hold some identifiable information; your business still needs consent to store this information, but you won’t be required to clean it if you're utilizing a GDPR tool that offers pseudonymization to protect visitor privacy by scrambling their data to make it useless if it falls into the wrong hands.
Usability
No matter how intuitive the GDPR software might be to use, there will be an early learning curve to overcome. You and your team will need to become accustomed to the platform and its capabilities, which can cost work hours. That’s why it’s smart to consider any training and onboarding a vendor offers with its software, helping everyone learn to navigate and efficiently use the tool to its fullest. However, any training or onboarding should be brief and allow everyone to get back to what they do best. Any way to make the tool more usable will save several days or weeks of low productivity.
Software Integrations
GDPR software can integrate with various types of business software, such as customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, content management systems, ecommerce solutions, web applications, marketing automation platforms, and human resources systems. Integrating GDPR compliance tools enables you to ensure your data is correctly managed according to the EU’s GDPR. Also, because some of these tools hold customer information and other sensitive details that require management in accordance with GDPR guidelines, integrating with GDPR software ensures your data is always secure and compliant.
People Also Ask
When considering implementing GDPR software in your business, you may have some questions that will help you understand whether you need these platforms or not. The following are some answers to frequently asked questions about GDPR software and helpful answers to benefit you.
How does GDPR impact email campaigns?
Under GDPR guidelines, your business must have a legal basis for processing personal information, such as email addresses. Consent is a standard legal basis for email marketing, meaning you must have explicit and informed consent from customers before you send promotional emails or newsletters. The following details other ways GDPR impacts email marketing campaigns.
Data Storage and Protection: Under the GDPR, you must ensure you’re protecting customers’ personal data and storing it securely, meaning you must take the proper technical and organizational measures to prevent theft, unauthorized access, or data misuse and ensure you’re only storing the data you require most and you’re deleting it when it’s no longer needed. The GDPR also requires you to implement suitable technical measures, such as pseudonymization and encryption, to protect personal data, and you need to have procedures and processes set in place to deal with data breaches and report them to relevant authorities within 72 hours of discovery. Lastly, you need a Data Protection Officer (DPO) who’s responsible for ensuring your company’s compliance with the regulation – and they must have the proper expertise and resources to effectively handle the role.
Opt-Ins and Opt-Outs: To obtain consent from visitors, your company must give customers a chance to opt-in to receive promotional newsletters or emails; opt-ins are positive acts of agreement that show customers give explicit content to receive your emails. Alternatively, opt-outs offer customers an opportunity to remove their consent and stop receiving your emails. Under GDPR, you must give clear and straightforward opt-out methods, such as unsubscribe links in every email you send, and your customers must be able to opt out as quickly as they opted in, and you must promptly honor their request. Keep in mind that pre-ticked opt-in boxes and default options aren’t considered valid consent; you need to ensure you get clear and specific consent from customers and that you’re allowing them to opt out easily.
Segmentation and Targeting: The GDPR significantly affects how your company collects, stores, and uses customers’ personal data for segmentation and targeting. Under the GDPR, you must have a legal basis for processing customer data for segmentation and targeting, meaning you need explicit and informed consent from customers before using their information for these purposes. You also must ensure you’re not gathering or processing more information than necessary and that you’re not using it for reasons that aren’t compatible with the reason for which it was originally collected. You also must provide clear and concise information about the details you’re collecting, how you intend to use it, and how long you’ll be keeping it.
Pre-Ticked Opt-In Boxes and Default Options: Pre-ticked opt-in boxes and default options are no longer valid forms of consent with the GDPR. Now, your business must provide clear and concise details about data processing activities and allow customers to voluntarily opt-in. Your customers must take positive actions, such as ticking boxes or clicking buttons, to show they agree to receive your emails.
Does GDPR apply to software?
The need to follow the GDPR has minimal impact on basic software development and testing choices, such as what programming language to use or which testing automation platform to use. However, you must keep specific GDPR requirements in mind every time you need to process users’ data when developing and testing software due to the law that grants users a set of rights regarding the processing of their data. Paying significant attention to ensure strong data protection and maintaining user information throughout every stage of the software development lifecycle is crucial to creating GDPR-compliant applications.
What countries require GDPR compliance?
As of May 25, 2018, the GDPR regulates how organizations must protect the personal data of individuals living in the European Union. The GDPR covers all EU member countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. The GDPR also covers European Economic Area countries: Iceland, Lichtenstein, and Norway. Non-European Union organizations with offices in EU countries or companies that collect, store, and process EU citizens’ data are still required to understand the regulation’s implications and stay in compliance.
What are the benefits of GDPR software?
As data privacy and protection continue to take center stage in the digital age, GDPR software emerges as a crucial tool for organizations to navigate compliance and build trust with their customers. Below, I’ll explore the array of advantages this software offers and showcase how it empowers businesses to handle personal data responsibly and in accordance with regulatory standards.
- Regulatory Compliance: GDPR software ensures compliance with regulations, with organizations experiencing improved adherence to data protection laws after implementation.
- Data Breach Prevention: Leveraging GDPR software reduces the likelihood of data breaches due to enhanced data protection measures.
- Consumer Trust: Businesses using GDPR software experience increased customer trust regarding their data handling practices.
- Enhanced Transparency: GDPR software enables transparent data practices, contributing to a higher level of customer understanding of data usage and consent.
- Data Subject Rights Management: By facilitating effective management of data subject rights, GDPR software helps organizations respond to data access requests faster.
- Risk Mitigation: GDPR software reduces the risk of non-compliance fines, leading to a decrease in financial penalties.
- Automated Data Mapping: In Article 30 of the GDPR, companies are required to maintain activity processing records to ensure compliance, and utilizing GDPR software simplifies data mapping processes, resulting in a reduction in the time needed for creating comprehensive data.
- Efficient Consent Management: GDPR software helps organizations manage consent efficiency, leading to an increase in consent accuracy and clarity.
- Vendor Risk Management: Businesses implementing GDPR software experience an improvement in managing third-party vendor data risks and ensuring compliance across the supply chain.
- Strategic Data Utilization: GDPR software aids in leveraging data strategically, resulting in a rise in data-driven decision-making across an organization.
Other Risk Compliance Solution Reviews
Risk compliance means more than just managing GDPR consent. You may also find yourself needing tools to monitor brand mention, intervene in negative customer reviews, and ensure asset consistency with detailed proofing, approval, and dissemination tools. Here are additional resources you may find useful:
- Social Listening Tools
- Brand Management Software
- Marketing Asset Management Software
- Click Fraud
- Brand Protection Software
The Takeaway
The GDPR has changed the way organizations collect data and implemented penalties for non-compliance. Helpful GDPR tools can significantly benefit your business as you employ new marketing strategies that need to comply with this regulation. To enhance your business’s GDPR compliance when operating in the EU, there are specific steps to follow and checkboxes to tick. However, there are ways to simplify this process, and using GDPR software is the easiest method that can reduce the headaches and make it simpler to meet the most crucial requirements, helping you focus on other business goals sooner.
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