About Wizards – Why we do what we do
Soon it will be twenty years since I joined the world of IT. During this time, I have observed how the environment has changed, how development processes have developed and what new tools have been used. Over time, many processes, including repetitive tasks, were automated. Companies implemented Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. All of this change has been motivated by a single thought: let software developers focus on system and business development.
Enter GDPR
The entry of GDPR into life shook the IT world and changed the rules of the game. The development process became more complicated and operating on personal data became a big risk that had to be addressed. Working in a software house, we saw these issues clearly because they occurred in each of our projects. In theory, we were prepared for GDPR. We completed the appropriate courses and the company was armed with documents and records. In practice, it turned out that legal restrictions and the uncertainty associated with the entry of this regulation into force impacted our everyday work. Gone was my dream of unhindered development, where we could focus solely on producing quality software.
Shortly after the appearance of GDPR regulations, we started looking for available solutions. The tools that we were able to find did not meet our project needs because every day we developed entire integrated ecosystems created in various technologies that exchanged personal data. I felt as if I had travelled two decades backwards in time.
Change of status quo
Ultimately, a group of people in the company emerged that set themselves the goal of changing the status quo. We knew what was required and how our plan could be implemented. We had never faced such a challenge before. Together, however, we managed to create a set of tools that ended up being a Godsend for us.
Anonymization of data
We started by anonymizing data in test environments. We created a tool that was able to handle many applications at once, taking into account the specificity of Polish law, and do its work efficiently.
The created solution was to support all of our projects, so high configurability and the ability to adapt to various requirements was the priority. We included anonymization in Continuous Integration processes and quickly implemented them in our projects. It turned out that the most painful aspects of GDPR are now handled automatically and no longer cause sleepless nights to the development team.
Retention of personal data
The next step was the retention of personal data, which is necessary in almost every system. Taking care of this aspect in a single application is easy. Performing data retention in ten integrated systems is much more difficult, and in a hundred – virtually impossible. It was clear to us that we did not want to repeat the same functionality in all systems that we produce. This is how another tool was born, relieving us of this burden.
Everything was back on track, just as I had dreamed. Fortunately, GDPR turned out to be only a bump on the road in our projects.
Wizards
With all of this in mind, we founded a startup. We came to the conclusion that the problems we had been dealing with were being experienced by many development teams, and we now had the ready solution.
That is why we decided to create Nocturno and Oblivio, about which you will be able to read more soon on our company profile.
Artur Żórawski, Founder & CTO of Wizards