In-Depth Insights: The City of Wanneroo's Data Privacy Journey

Discover insights from key figures involved in this successful journey, as they discuss the challenges and strategies that led to this notable accomplishment in data privacy and information governance.

Catherine Chick:

It's an honour to receive this award on behalf of the City of Wanneroo. We have a dedicated team here at the city who really understand the value of data, and we strive to take a customer-first approach. I also want to thank WyldLynx and Carl's team, who have been really supportive all the way through our journey. So, big thank you to everybody.

Carl Duncan:

Hello, I'm Carl from WyldLynx. I'm here today with Catherine Chick from the City of Wanneroo to talk about the council's data discovery and data lifecycle management journey. WyldLynx is City of Wanneroo's solution partner for Core Data Discovery & Trust Insights, which is a data discovery and data management solution. It allows organisations to find, manage, and secure sensitive information but also reduce their risk and duplication. It allows organisations the ability to take action on their data and let the tool work for them. City of Wanneroo completed a WyldLynx proof of value project. The proof of value project was created by the WyldLynx team to provide organisations the ability to understand the value of the Core Data Discovery & Trust Insights solution and what it means for their organisation. We know the tool works; otherwise, we wouldn't be doing what we're doing. But the value it provides each organisation is different. During the proof of value projects, we provide clients with a report highlighting what we have found, where the risk is, and what the return on investment is. So, welcome Catherine, thanks for being here today. Would you like to tell us about yourself and your organisation?

Catherine Chick:

Thanks, thanks Carl, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here today. My background is in records and information management. Over the past 12 years, I've worked across the private sector, states, and now in local government. I've worked here at the City of Wanneroo for the past five years, starting as team leader of the information management team and for the past 12 months, I've been working as coordinator of the Business Systems team. The City of Wanneroo, a local government, is located 12 kilometres north of the Perth metropolitan area. It's one of Australia's fastest and largest growing local governments with a population of approximately 225,000. We collect, store, and use a broad range of residents' data, customers, ratepayers, residents, and prospective employees.

Carl Duncan:

So we all know the importance of managing risk with PII and everything that's going on. The data privacy laws are there, and obviously, things that people like or don't like. But what drove you and your organisation to take action on this? What were some of the challenges? Why now, and what were some of the outcomes from this engagement?

Catherine Chick:

So the first time that I met you, Carl, was here in Perth in 2019, and you were here talking about, I guess, a previous version of Core Data Discovery & Trust Insights. I could immediately at that time see the data discovery value, but my challenge at that time was convincing management of the value. Privacy, PII wasn't really on their radar back then. Fast forward four years, we've had so much change, data explosion, global pandemic, data privacy laws, and then at the end of 2022, we had the big Optus and Medibank breaches. So organisations all of a sudden are very aware of managing the risk of a data breach. Earlier this year, then I was at the WA Content Manager User Group, where I was lucky enough to see another demo of the SAS Data Discovery product, and I just thought that there's no better opportunity than now to get management support for a tool like this and to use it for that value and the data discovery around PII

Carl Duncan:

So Catherine, what were some of the challenges internally, and how did you overcome them to get this project signed off or started?

Catherine Chick:

Well, actually, this time around, we've been really lucky. We've had a new manager in our area with a real strong background in cybersecurity. And as I mentioned before, changing landscapes in terms of data privacy, it was just an easier conversation to get support for this time around. So not too many challenges in having the project signed off for us, luckily.

Carl Duncan:

So data privacy is one aspect of risk management. We can't ignore data cataloguing, classification of information, records management, or retention management. Now, data discovery has much wider strategic implications for good or better governance. Can you share some of the strategic initiatives or areas you think are important for your organisation moving forward?

Catherine Chick:

Yeah, certainly. One really important strategic initiative, with new privacy legislation in WA soon to come into effect, is PRIS, and we want to be on the front foot. So this is a really effective means to enable us to achieve this. Another strategic initiative for us is to be able to identify our information and data assets. We use Content Manager here for our EDMS, but we know that documents and information are stored outside of the EDMS in file shares, in Teams, in OneDrive. And if we don't know where it is, then we can't manage it.

Carl Duncan:

So Catherine, during these projects that we normally do, we often find clients who are a little bit overwhelmed by what we find and have an 'oh wow' moment. Can you give us some examples of things that you sort of found during the project or that surprised you in any way?

Catherine Chick:

Yeah, we certainly had an 'oh wow' moment when we had the results back from the scanning. It was quite overwhelming, just the volume of data, and at first, we didn't really know where to start. But with a tool like this, you are able to prioritise, right? So that's one of the benefits. And we found all sorts of things from bank account details, Medicare cards, driver's licenses, the kind of things that we were expecting to find, but it was a shock.

Carl Duncan:

Lastly, Catherine, can you share a little bit about your partnership with the WyldLynx team and some of the interesting takeaways that came out of it, working with that team and the proof of value project?

Catherine Chick:

WyldLynx walked us through the whole proof of value project. Carl, Sarah, and Louise know the software inside out and have provided support from start to finish. Next steps for us are, I guess, unpacking the results from the Proof of Value, and there's still so much more to be done. I'm really excited to carry on the journey with the WyldLynx team.