Encryption for Inactive Customers' Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

 

Personally identifiable information (PII) is any information that could be used to identify a particular person. Customer data stored in Sage 100 that is considered PII includes names, addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses, web addresses, bank names, bank account numbers, tax exempt numbers, alternate tax ID numbers, and value-added tax IDs.

Various states are either considering or have passed laws intended to protect individuals' privacy. Some of these laws, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), require that businesses, if asked to do so, either delete a consumer's PII or deidentify it so that it cannot be used to identify the individual.

Sage 100 provides the ability to encrypt PII for inactive customers so that it's no longer visible in task windows or reports. Furthermore, the data cannot be viewed in Data File Display and Maintenance, or accessed through Visual Integrator or external reporting using an ODBC data source. You can continue adding related records for the customer. For example, you could process a payment received from the customer or add a new customer contact.

Note This feature is available if you purchased Sage 100 through a subscription plan.

For information on encrypting vendor information, see Encryption for Inactive Vendors' PII.

For information on safeguards to protect employee information, see Security for Employees' PII.

Encrypting PII

There are two ways to encrypt a customer's PII. You can click the Encrypt button in Customer Maintenance or if a customer record has been deleted, use the Encrypt Customer Personally Identifiable Information utility to encrypt any PII that is still stored in the history files.

 

Linked Customer and Vendor Records

If you click the Encrypt button for a customer record that is linked to a vendor record, a message appears to let you know that the records are linked and gives you the following options: 

  • Break the link and encrypt the customer's PII.
  • Cancel the request.

Customers Linked to Sage CRM Companies

If you click the Encrypt button for a customer record linked to a Sage CRM company record, a message appears to let you know that the records are linked and gives you the options to break the link or cancel the request. If you encrypt the customer data, all PII information for the customer will then need to be managed directly in Sage CRM.