Analyzing the Impact of GDPR on Storage Systems

USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Storage and File Systems, 2019

7 Pages Posted: 2 Aug 2019

See all articles by Aashaka Shah

Aashaka Shah

University of Texas at Austin - Computer Science Engineering

Vinay Banakar

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise

Supreeth Shastri

University of Texas at Austin - Computer Science Engineering

Melissa F. Wasserman

The University of Texas at Austin - School of Law

Vijay Chidambaram

University of Texas at Austin - Computer Science Engineering

Date Written: July 8, 2019

Abstract

The recently introduced General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is forcing several companies to make significant changes to their systems to achieve compliance. Motivated by the finding that more than 30% of GDPR articles are related to storage, we investigate the impact of GDPR compliance on storage systems. We illustrate the challenges of retrofitting existing systems into compliance by modifying Redis to be GDPR-compliant. We show that despite needing to introduce a small set of new features, a strict real-time compliance (e.g., logging every user request synchronously) lowers Redis' throughput by 20x. Our work reveals how GDPR allows compliance to be a spectrum, and what its implications are for system designers. We discuss the technical challenges that need to be solved before strict compliance can be efficiently achieved.

Keywords: GDPR compliance, Redis, Digital privacy law

Suggested Citation

Shah, Aashaka and Banakar, Vinay and Shastri, Supreeth and Wasserman, Melissa F. and Chidambaram, Vijay, Analyzing the Impact of GDPR on Storage Systems (July 8, 2019). USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Storage and File Systems, 2019, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3428995

Aashaka Shah

University of Texas at Austin - Computer Science Engineering ( email )

1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://aashaka.github.io/

Vinay Banakar

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise ( email )

United States

Supreeth Shastri (Contact Author)

University of Texas at Austin - Computer Science Engineering ( email )

1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shastri/

Melissa F. Wasserman

The University of Texas at Austin - School of Law ( email )

727 East Dean Keeton St
Austin, TX 78705
United States

Vijay Chidambaram

University of Texas at Austin - Computer Science Engineering ( email )

1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712
United States

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