EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework: Salesforce Solution

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Challenge

In October 2015, the European Court of Justice passed judgment on the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework. The judgement stated that it was not a valid mechanism to comply with EU data protection requirements when transferring personal data from the European Union to the United States.

In late March of 2016, The MIL Corporation (MIL) was notified that negotiations of a new framework were underway and began work on a system to serve the needs of U.S. businesses, Privacy Shield Administers, and foreign citizens. However, when the United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union that June, it caused the agreement to become uncertain, resulting in a temporary project halt. The following month, the approval of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework was announced, which replaced the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor. The announcement required  completely new internal and external web-based systems to administer the new framework. The new Privacy Shield system was mandated to go live on Aug. 1, 2016.

Solution

MIL recognized that the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) could not deliver the Aug. 1 deadline without hyper-development speed and enterprise-grade application stability. During the analysis of the existing software portfolio at DoC, the Salesforce Platform stood out as a clear choice for success. Over 90% of the solution, for both the internal and external systems, existed “out-of-the-box” on the Salesforce Platform. By leveraging this configurable platform, instead of a code-based application, MIL was able to spend considerable development time collaborating with DoC staff to create a new benchmark in U.S. government web applications.

MIL implemented a variety of Salesforce Platform components to achieve success. The team utilized the Service Cloud’s Case and Correspondence Management, which includes orders, assets, CRM, Chatter, and Console. Additionally, the Salesforce Communities Cloud web registration and publishing (sites) as well as App Cloud’s point-and-click object development, data validation, and Process Builder were implemented.

Benefit

Due to the historic use of code-based applications in the U.S. government, their public web applications and internal systems have been known to become cost probative to maintain at the modern technology pace. By building the Privacy Shield application on the Salesforce Platform, DoC will receive three major upgrades per year, without cost to the U.S. taxpayer. In addition to a modern system, the Salesforce Platform’s core is their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. For the first time, DoC can begin viewing their customer interactions in 360 degrees.