Is Your Support Team GLBA-Compliant? Protecting Financial Data with Isara
For financial institutions, customer trust depends on more than great service — it depends on confidentiality. Every support ticket, chat, or email from a client may include financial account information, identity details, or transaction data protected under the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA).
While most financial organisations have robust security around core banking systems, support platforms are often overlooked. Yet a single support ticket containing unredacted financial data can lead to a GLBA violation, exposing both customers and the organisation to risk.
That’s where Isara comes in — helping financial institutions audit support tickets for GLBA compliance, identify sensitive data exposure, and strengthen data-protection practices across all customer communication channels.
Understanding GLBA and the Safeguards Rule
The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA) applies to financial institutions — banks, insurers, lenders, credit unions, and fintech companies — and sets strict requirements for protecting customer information.
Its Safeguards Rule, enforced by the FTC, requires organisations to:
Develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive information security program.
Identify and assess risks to customer information across all systems.
Design and monitor safeguards to control those risks.
Regularly evaluate and adjust those safeguards as business or technology changes.
In short, GLBA compliance isn’t just about technology — it’s about visibility and accountability across every process that touches customer data, including support.
The hidden risk in customer support data
Financial institutions handle large volumes of sensitive information: account numbers, loan details, income verification, and insurance identifiers. Customers often share this information when contacting support — especially when resolving billing errors, loan questions, or claim disputes.
Unfortunately, helpdesk systems like Zendesk, Intercom, or HubSpot were built for responsiveness, not regulatory oversight. Over time, thousands of tickets can accumulate, containing:
Account or routing numbers in message text or attachments.
Personally identifiable information (PII) such as Social Security Numbers (SSNs) or date of birth.
Financial statements or loan documents uploaded for review.
Sensitive communications retained beyond required retention periods.
Even if your primary systems are compliant, these tickets can become an uncontrolled data repository — one that auditors and regulators will expect you to manage.
Manual oversight doesn’t scale
Most compliance teams don’t have the resources to manually inspect every ticket or attachment for sensitive information. Keyword searches or sampling may identify some issues, but they often miss nuanced or formatted data (e.g., masked account numbers, PDFs with embedded text, or conversations referencing private details).
Manual review is slow, inconsistent, and can’t provide a defensible record of due diligence — especially when regulators expect demonstrable, repeatable monitoring practices.
That’s where automation changes everything.
Introducing Isara: automated audits for GLBA compliance
Isara enables financial institutions to audit their customer support tickets for compliance with GLBA’s Safeguards Rule.
Using advanced AI and data-classification models, Isara analyses ticket histories from platforms like Intercom, Zendesk, and HubSpot to identify:
Financial identifiers such as account or routing numbers.
Sensitive PII, including SSNs, income details, or employment data.
Customer information retained beyond policy limits.
Potential control failures or patterns that could indicate process gaps.
You can run audits across specific periods (weekly, monthly, quarterly) to track improvements, detect emerging risks, and maintain a verifiable record of compliance activity.
With Isara, your compliance team gains actionable visibility into where customer financial data resides and how it’s being handled — turning oversight from a manual burden into a structured, data-driven process.
Mapping Isara to GLBA’s Safeguards Rule requirements
GLBA RequirementHow Isara Supports ComplianceRisk Identification and AssessmentAutomatically locates sensitive financial and personal data in support tickets.Design and Implementation of SafeguardsProvides insights to refine redaction, retention, and data-access controls.Monitoring and Testing of SafeguardsEnables regular audits to verify ongoing effectiveness of security practices.Employee Training and OversightHighlights recurring risk patterns to guide agent training and awareness.Adjusting SafeguardsTracks trends over time, helping teams demonstrate continual improvement.
These insights make it easier to show regulators and auditors that your institution is actively monitoring its controls and maintaining a robust information security program.
Seamless integration and data security
Isara integrates directly with your existing support systems via official marketplace apps. Once installed, it runs securely within your environment — there’s no need to export sensitive ticket data or upload files externally.
This design ensures:
Security: Sensitive financial data stays within your controlled systems.
Simplicity: Audits are configured and launched in minutes.
Continuity: Audits run alongside day-to-day support operations without downtime.
For institutions governed by strict privacy and retention rules, Isara provides a safe, compliant way to gain oversight without increasing data-movement risk.
Turning compliance into a competitive advantage
GLBA compliance is more than a legal obligation — it’s a marker of integrity. Customers choose financial institutions they can trust, and transparency around data protection is a powerful differentiator.
By using Isara to monitor and audit your support operations, you can:
Reduce audit stress by having clear, documented oversight.
Respond confidently to regulator inquiries or examinations.
Build a culture of security where compliance is embedded in daily practice.
Differentiate your brand through visible commitment to data protection.
This capability is currently available for early access and private demos as we prepare for public release. Forward-thinking financial institutions participating in early access are already using Isara to enhance GLBA compliance, simplify internal reviews, and improve their overall information-governance posture.
Build financial data trust with Isara
The financial industry operates on trust — and trust is built on security. By using Isara to audit your customer support data, you can ensure that the principles of the GLBA are reflected in every customer interaction.
Get in touch today to request a demo and see how Isara helps your organisation strengthen compliance, reduce risk, and maintain the confidence of your customers and regulators.