Method for Automatically Issuing Incident Notifications

A system for automatically issuing a data incident notification, the system comprising:

• a plurality of data storage devices, each data storage device storing a plurality of data items;
• a data item and entity index for each data storage device, wherein, for each data storage device, the data item and entity index comprises a plurality of index entries, wherein each index entry comprises an identifier for one data item of the plurality of data items stored by the data storage device together with an entity identifier for each entity named within content of each data item;
• and
• at least one processor coupled to memory, arranged for:
• determining an incident has occurred with respect to at least one of the data storage devices;
• obtaining the data item and entity index for the at least one data storage device where the incident has occurred;
• generating, using the obtained data item and entity index for the at least one data storage device, a notification list comprising each data item that names at least one entity, and the corresponding entity identifier of the entity;
• and
• determining, for each entity identifier in the notification list, whether to generate a data incident notification.

A computer-implemented method for automatically generating a data item and entity index for use in issuing data incident notifications, the method comprising:

• receiving an update whenever a new data item has been stored in a data storage device;
• obtaining, for the new data item, an identifier for the new data item;
• obtaining an entity identifier for each entity named within content of the new data item;
• and
• adding an index entry to the data item and entity index, wherein the index entry comprises the identifier for the new data item and the entity identifier for each entity named within content of the new data item.