Prevent indexing of PII data

This topic describes an important part in managing GDPR compliance.

IGDPRConventions and ITrackSanitizerPatternRepository are used for adding the filtering.

IGDPRConventions

IGDPRConventions has these methods.

• Set patterns to remove GDPR data from a search query.
  public virtual void SetGDPRPatterns(List<GDPRPattern> gdprPatterns)
• Get the GDPR patterns to be removed in a search query
  public virtual IEnumerable<GDPRPattern> GetGDPRPatterns()
• Delete the GDPR data in the search query that matches the patterns.
  public string RemoveGDPRDataInQuery(string queryStringQuery)

ITrackSanitizerPatternRepository

The ITrackSanitizerPatternRepository has these methods.

Add patterns to remove PII data from search query

• Add single pattern
  public string Add(TrackSanitizerPattern pattern)
• Add multiple patterns
  public void Add(IEnumerable<TrackSanitizerPattern> patterns)

Update patterns to remove PII data from search query

• Update single pattern
  public string Update(TrackSanitizerPattern pattern)
• Update multiple patterns
  public void Update(IEnumerable<TrackSanitizerPattern> patterns)

Get patterns to remove PII in search query

• Get a pattern by ID
  public TrackSanitizerPattern Get(string patternId)
• Get all patterns
  public IEnumerable<TrackSanitizerPattern> GetAll()

Delete PII data in the search query that matched the patterns

• Delete a pattern by ID
  public void Delete(string patternId)
• Delete all patterns
  public void DeleteAll()

Example filters

The patterns support plain text, wildcards, and regex. Here are some example filters.

• Full name – “John Smith,” “Steven,” and so on.
• Keyword contains email – *@gmail.com, *@yahoo.com, and so on.
• Regex string – \w+([-+.]\w+)*@\w+([-.]\w+)*.\w+([-.]\w+)* and so on.

public class Sample {
  protected IClient _client;
  protected IStatisticsClient _statisticsClient;
  protected ITrackSanitizerPatternRepository _trackSaniziterRepository;
  public Sample(IClient client) {
    _client = client;
    _statisticsClient = client.Statistics();
    _trackSaniziterRepository = client.TrackSanitizer().TrackSaniziterRepository;
  }

  public void Test() {
    // Setting and add sanitizer patterns.
    _trackSaniziterRepository.Add(new List<TrackSanitizerPattern> {
      new TrackSanitizerPattern {
        PatternString = "admin",
          PatternType = TrackSanitizerFilterType.PlainText
      },
      new TrackSanitizerPattern {
        PatternString = "email",
          PatternType = TrackSanitizerFilterType.PlainText
      },
      new TrackSanitizerPattern {
        PatternString = "*@mail.com",
          PatternType = TrackSanitizerFilterType.Wildcard
      },
      new TrackSanitizerPattern {
        PatternString = "1#1",
          PatternType = TrackSanitizerFilterType.Wildcard
      },
      new TrackSanitizerPattern {
        PatternString = "c[a-e]ll",
          PatternType = TrackSanitizerFilterType.Wildcard
      },
      new TrackSanitizerPattern {
        PatternString = @ "\w+([-+.]\w+)*@\w+([-.]\w+)*\.\w+([-.]\w+)*",
          PatternType = TrackSanitizerFilterType.Regex
      }
    });

    // Doing Tracking behavior
    var result = _client
      .UnifiedSearchFor(@ "[email protected]")
      .StatisticsTrack()
      .GetResult();

    // Try to get GDPR data by exact term matched sanitize pattern.
    var response = _statisticsClient.GetGDPR("[email protected]", x => {});
  }
};

The _statisticsClient.GetGDPR() API only support exact term search due to limitations of statistics indexes.

Install and verify PII filtering

The steps below describe how to implement and verify the PII filtering.

• CMS Alloy sample site (for CMS 11 and Commerce 13) installed from the Visual Studio Extension. See also Install Optimizely .NET5 for CMS 12 and Commerce 14.
• Optimizely Search & Navigation service URL and default index name, for example http://es-api-test01.episerver.com/>\<PRIVATE_KEY>.
• Optimizely Search & Navigation client-side resource base URL, for example https://dl.episerver.net/13.2.0.
• Optimizely Search & Navigation 13.2.0

Install PII filtering packages

1. In Visual Studio, set the default project to Templates.Alloy.

2. Install the following NuGet packages (use the “-pre” option to get the latest development package).

   • Find.Cms
   • Find.Statistics

3. Open the Alloy web.config file and update the following entries: 

   • In the <episerver.find> tag
     • serviceUrl
     • defaultIndex
   • In the <episerver.find.ui> tag 
     • clientSideResourceBaseUrl
   • In the <appSettings> tag
     • add an item with key episerver:Find.TrackingSanitizerEnabled and value true

4. Access Admin Mode and add a GDPR test page.
   a. Go to CMS > Admin > Content Type tab > Page Types > [Specialized] Start Page > Settings.

b. Click Available Page Types and check  [Specialized] Find GDPR API Demo Page and click Save.

3. Go to the CMS Edit > navigation panel > Pages tab > Start branch of the tree structure.
4. Create a GDPR Search page and publish it.

5. Return to CMS > Admin view.
6. Under Scheduled jobs, click Optimizely Find Content Indexing Job and start that job manually.

Verify PII filtering

In these steps, you perform a search, delete the GDPR-related data, and add a filtering pattern to prevent it from being indexed.

1. Open the GDPR Demo page created in the previous steps. Clear the GDPR pattern settings to verify that the tracking function runs well.

2. Go to the search page and execute a search with some keywords.

3. Go to the GDPR Demo page and review the displayed data.

4. Delete the existing GDPR data and set patterns to prevent it.

5. Search again and recheck for the GDPR data, which should now be filtered out.