Tracers: Getting Started

Data Security Hidden In Your Data
Starting with Tracer Records
Implementing Tracers is a simple three-step process: Generate, Insert, Monitor.
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Generate a Tracer Record. This creates an artificial record that includes a unique email address, phone number and other identifiers. |
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You insert the Tracer into any valuable data source that houses personally identifiable data (PII): Contacts, Customer databases, HR files, Patient records, Leads, Newsletter lists, etc. |
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We monitor for activity on your Tracer Records and alert you to any activity or scan hits. We run a monthly Breach Drill so you can verify your Tracers are in place and functional. |
1. Generate
The first order of business for new users is to generate Tracers. If Tracers were not emailed to you with your Welcome Email and Welcome PDF, you need to generate them.
Generating Tracers can be done in either bulk automated or customized one-off. Customization allows you more control over information in the artificial record but also takes more time and attention. Most users will want to use the automated generation of Tracers.
Sample Tracer Records
Email Tracer | Phone Tracer | First | Last | Org | Street | City | ST | ZIP | Other | |
Tracer 1 | ASearcy@__.net | 206-528-5487 | Ariana | Searcy | Nordstrom | 326 Beech Ave | Edison | NJ | 08817 | Dog |
Tracer 2 | usmcbro@__.us | 832-452-0643 | Bryson | Johnson | Trak Auto | 1132 Elliot Ave | Seattle | WA | 98115 | SSN 125-26-9843 |
Tracer 3 | cor.marc@__.com | 315-273-5586 | Corrine | Marcellus | Flipside Records | 1601 Buckhannan | Carthage | NY | 13619 | MWC |
2. Insert
Once you have your Tracers in hand, its time to deploy them. Decide which databases you need to protect and how many records you will insert in each.
Tracer Records can be inserted in a variety of ways. Initially, we suggest you just drop them in. It really doesn’t matter how Tracers get into your files, but there are Best Practices you can consider once once you have achieved a base level of protection.
Add Tracers to your Customer database, your Employee database, your newsletter email lists, etc. For oother ideas on where to put Tracers, see our Data Sources guide. You can add Tracers by simply pretending to be a customer. Or get technical and insert them into a database at the table level. For addcitional help on how to insert Tracers, see our section on Tracer Insertion Methods.
3. Monitor
Monitor your Tracers by checking your email for alerts from PrivcyPlan. If there is activity on your Tracer we will notify you.
Once a month we will run a Breach Drill to ensure your Tracers are active.
Depending on where you inserted your Tracer, you may receive Alerts. If you inserted a Tracer in an active Sales database for instance, and your Sales and Marketing team are doing their job, you would expect that they are contacting your Tracer. We will alert you to this activitity. You can tell us to ignore contacts from specific addresses with a quick click.
Data Sources
You can put Tracers anywhere you store personally identifiable data. Here are a few data sources common to most organizations:
- CRM
- Salesforce
- HubSpot
- Zoho
- Insightly
- Email Marketing
- MailChimp
- Get Response
- Constant Contact
- Sendy
- Lead Database
- Employee Database
- Gusto
- Bamboo
- Zenefits
- Zoho People
- Accounting Program
- QuickBooks
- FreshBooks
