Segment Launches New End-User Privacy Tools that Streamline and Simplify GDPR Compliance Across Segment and Supported Partners

SAN FRANCISCO, April 24, 2018 -- Segment, the customer data platform, today announced the availability of new product features that will help brands achieve compliance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which takes effect May 25, 2018. Using either a simple user interface or an API, Segment customers will be able to manage user deletion and suppression requests, as well as automatically forward them to supported Segment integrations such as Amplitude, Braze (formerly Appboy), Intercom and Iterable. With these new features, Segment helps its customers meet key end-user rights requests under the GDPR.

“We welcome the GDPR because it sets a new standard for privacy rights, requiring businesses to be more transparent about how they use their customers’ personal data,” said Peter Reinhardt, co-founder and CEO of Segment. “Segment has always been committed to building a customer data platform that is respectful of user privacy and powered by first-party data. We are dedicated not only to helping our customers achieve GDPR compliance, but also to fostering a partner ecosystem that is privacy-conscious and prioritizes the rights of the individual.”

Under the GDPR, consumer rights are strengthened and expanded, and end-user rights requests are likely to increase given the recent widespread interest in consumer privacy. While the GDPR will raise the bar for protecting end-users’ rights and privacy, it presents a complex technological challenge for most companies — evidenced by a Gartner estimate that more than 50 percent of companies affected by the GDPR will not be in full compliance by the time the law goes into effect.

Streamline Compliance with GDPR Rights Requests

With Segment, brands will be able to operationalize GDPR rights requests through a new, simple user interface or a new API. Specifically, companies will be able to:

• Issue deletion requests to delete a specified user’s data from Segment. Data will be deleted where it is stored on the Segment platform.
• Issue deletion requests to delete user data from supported integrations. Issuing a delete call will also delete a user’s data from Amazon Redshift, Amazon S3, Google BigQuery and Postgres.
• Forward user deletion requests to supported integrations. Segment automatically forwards deletion requests to supported integrations, like Amplitude, Braze (formerly Appboy), Intercom and Iterable.
• Suppress data collection for specific users. Add users to a suppression list to restrict user data from being sent to Segment and supported integrations.
• Monitor deletion and suppression status from a user interface. To help with monitoring and auditing rights requests, all user deletion and suppression requests will be documented within Segment.

In addition, Segment’s existing functionality already supports:

• Honoring the rights to access and portability. Segment’s raw data integrations and warehouses enable companies to compile a complete picture of all data sent to Segment about a user and share it with them in a structured format.
• Rectifying user data. With just a single API call, companies can create or update a user’s data inside of Segment and across a company’s connected integrations, ensuring a user’s data is always up-to-date.

"Amplitude and Segment share a similar mission. We want to help companies build great products, engage their customers and grow their business,” said Spenser Skates, CEO of Amplitude. “We are delighted to announce that we have further strengthened this partnership. We are working together to prioritize and simplify user privacy for all.”

“Braze (formerly Appboy) is committed to ongoing compliance with the GDPR, serving as good stewards of our clients’ data, and promoting seamless data connections between our partners,” said Bill Magnuson, CEO and co-founder of Braze (formerly Appboy). “Working in partnership with Segment to streamline and simplify end-user requests helps us to accomplish these goals, while also supporting brands as they work toward compliance with the GDPR.”

About Segment
Segment is the infrastructure for your customer data. Use one API to unlock 200+ tools for every team in your company. With Segment, developers can stop building tedious and expensive one-off data integrations while business users can compute important traits about each customer and push this data to their favorite apps for analytics and personalization. Segment is trusted by thousands of companies including Gap Inc., New Relic, Instacart, Intuit, and Time. For more information visit https://segment.com.

Danielle Stickler
[email protected]