Enterprise data classification using semantic web technologies

Abstract

Organizations today collect and store large amounts of data in various formats and locations, however they are sometimes required to locate all instances of a certain type of data. Data classification enables efficient retrieval of information when needed. This work presents a reference implementation for enterprise data classification using Semantic Web technologies. We demonstrate automatic discovery and classification of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in relational databases, using a classification model in RDF/OWL describing the elements to discover and classify. At the end of the process the results are also stored in RDF, enabling simple navigation between the input model and the findings in different databases.