A CISO's Global Guide to Data Archiving Compliance

For a multinational enterprise, data archiving is no longer a simple IT housekeeping task. It is a complex legal and security challenge. Each country and industry has its own web of regulations governing how long data must be kept, how it must be protected, and when it must be destroyed. A "one-size-fits-all" approach is a direct path to non-compliance.

This guide provides a high-level overview for CISOs and compliance officers on the major global regulations that impact your SAP data archiving and Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) strategy.

A GLOBAL OVERVIEW OF KEY DATA REGULATIONS

Europe

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation): This is the gold standard for personal data privacy. Its core principle of "Storage Limitation" means you cannot keep personal data forever. You must have a defined purpose and a retention period, after which the data must be securely destroyed. This makes an automated data destruction tool like SAP ILM essential.

GoBD (Grundsätze zur ordnungsmäßigen Führung...) - Germany: Focusing on tax-relevant data, GoBD demands that electronic records be complete, immutable, and machine-readable for up to 10 years. This is the primary driver for using SAP's Data Retention Tool (DART) to create compliant audit extracts *before* any financial data is archived.

Americas

SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act) - USA: For public companies, SOX mandates strict controls over financial records to prevent fraud. This requires a robust, secure, and auditable long-term archiving solution for all financial data.

CCPA/CPRA (California Consumer Privacy Act / Privacy Rights Act) - USA: This influential state law gives consumers the "Right to Delete" their personal information. Your archiving and ILM strategy must be able to locate and verifiably delete specific customer data upon request.

LGPD (Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados) - Brazil: Heavily inspired by GDPR, Brazil's LGPD requires a clear legal basis for processing and storing personal data, mandating defined retention and deletion policies for the data of Brazilian citizens.

PIPEDA - Canada: Canada's federal privacy law requires that personal information only be retained for as long as necessary to fulfill its original purpose, necessitating a clear data lifecycle policy.

Asia-Pacific (APAC)

DPDP Act (Digital Personal Data Protection Act) - India: India's new framework operates on principles of purpose limitation and data minimization. Storing personal data of Indian citizens indefinitely without a clear purpose is non-compliant, driving the need for ILM.

PIPL (Personal Information Protection Law) - China: One of the world's strictest privacy laws, PIPL has rigorous rules on consent and cross-border data transfer. This is a major driver for data sovereignty, often requiring that data on Chinese citizens be archived to storage physically located within China.

APPI (Act on the Protection of Personal Information) - Japan: Japan's privacy law requires clear policies on data handling and purpose, and has its own rules governing data transfer outside of Japan.

PDPA (Personal Data Protection Act) - Singapore: This act includes a specific "Retention Limitation Obligation," making it a legal requirement to stop retaining documents with personal data once the original business purpose is no longer valid.

Privacy Act 1988 - Australia: Mandates that organizations must take active steps to destroy or de-identify personal information when it is no longer needed, making a "do-nothing" retention strategy non-compliant.

Africa

POPIA (Protection of Personal Information Act) - South Africa: As South Africa's GDPR-equivalent, POPIA requires that personal data not be retained any longer than necessary, making ILM retention policies a key tool for compliance.

SUMMARY OF GLOBAL REGULATIONS

CONCLUSION: A UNIFIED STRATEGY FOR A DIVERSE WORLD

Navigating this complex global landscape requires more than just a simple archiving tool. It requires a strategic approach using a powerful framework like **SAP Information Lifecycle Management (ILM)**. ILM allows you to create and automate different rules for different countries, data types, and retention periods, all within a single, centrally managed system. This is the key to achieving global compliance while efficiently managing your data volume.