Tool Overview:
LightBeam

About LightBeam

LightBeam is a Zero Trust Data Protection platform designed to help organizations manage data privacy, security, and compliance across their technology infrastructure. The platform combines privacy operations (PrivacyOps) capabilities with automated data discovery and classification tools to address various regulatory requirements including GDPR, CCPA, FERPA, HIPAA, and Quebec Law 25.

What does LightBeam do?

The platform's core technology, called Spectra, automates the discovery and classification of sensitive information across multiple data types and sources. It can identify sensitive data in images, text, logs, emails, tables, HTML, and JSON files. Through pre-trained models, the system automatically classifies documents based on their content and connects to various data sources including log repositories, ticketing systems, databases, emails, and file repositories.

LightBeam's Identity Graph functionality creates relationships between discovered data attributes and individual identities, enabling organizations to understand what information they hold about customers, employees, and partners. This identity-centric approach extends to access governance, allowing organizations to track who has access to specific data and monitor how that data is being used.

The platform includes several risk remediation capabilities. Users can redact sensitive information either on-demand or through automated policies, archive inactive datasets to reduce security risks, and implement automated deletion rules for unnecessary data. These features work alongside audit control mechanisms that track all actions taken on sensitive data, including modifications and deletions.

What makes LightBeam different?

A distinguishing aspect of LightBeam is its contextual AI technology for data classification. The platform employs machine learning models specifically trained for document classification and sensitive data identification. This automated approach aims to reduce manual effort in data classification and governance tasks.

LightBeam's architecture supports multiple deployment options. Organizations can deploy the platform in their own cloud environment, ensuring data and metadata remain within their infrastructure. On-premises deployment is available for organizations that need to keep all data within their network perimeter. A SaaS deployment option exists for organizations with different infrastructure requirements.

Use cases and industries

LightBeam serves various sectors including healthcare providers managing HIPAA compliance, educational institutions ensuring FERPA compliance, and financial services organizations addressing PCI DSS requirements. The platform has been implemented by organizations like AGA Group for compliance with Quebec Law 25, particularly in scenarios involving sensitive data discovery with small teams.

The platform integrates with common business applications including Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, AWS resources, SQL and NoSQL databases, data warehouses, and messaging platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams. This integration capability enables organizations to maintain visibility and control over sensitive data across their technology stack while managing compliance requirements.