Retailers are facing a growing volume of DSAR Requests in retail. Discover how AI-powered redaction simplifies DSAR response to ensure GDPR compliance, reduce costs, and protect privacy.
Retailers today are faced with the pressure of legal demands, and it’s not slowing down. Managing DSAR Requests in retail is now one of the biggest headaches for compliance and operations teams. These aren’t simple customer questions. They’re formal legal rights under GDPR, and retailers must act accordingly to stay compliant.
In 2024, a staggering 36% of internet users worldwide exercised their DSAR rights, up from 24% just two years ago. Customers, former employees, and even legal representatives are filing requests at record levels. And with GDPR requiring responses within one month, the pressure is building fast.
Subject access requests may range from access to retail surveillance footage for investigations to customers directly requesting access to their transaction history data or a copy of their account information, including any stored payment methods or shipping addresses. This makes handling DSARs challenging, especially with the growing volume of requests.
In this blog, we’ll explore how retailers can manage the rising volume of DSARs more effectively through some best practices, including AI-powered redaction for retail to ensure secure data sharing and GDPR compliance for data protection officers.
Fulfilling DSARs involves more than just providing basic information, such as sharing surveillance footage or emailing loyalty point balances. In reality, it’s a more detailed process that requires careful handling of various types of data, ensuring that privacy is protected, and all legal requirements are met.
A DSAR (Data Subject Access Request) allows individuals to ask for transparency about how their personal data is collected, stored, and used. Under GDPR Article 15, businesses must provide detailed answers, including:
It's not limited to customers alone. A DSAR can come from:
For example, an employee who left your store two years ago could file a DSAR demanding copies of all emails, incident reports, or surveillance footage that includes them.
Retailers handle an enormous variety of customer and employee data across multiple systems, making them a prime target for DSARs. Individuals submitting DSARs are not only interested in their basic personal information but also in all the digital interactions, transactions, and records a retailer may have captured over time.
In the context of retail, DSARs commonly request access to a range of data types, including but not limited to:
Video recordings captured inside and outside retail stores, including entryways, checkout counters, aisles, fitting rooms, parking lots, and customer service areas.
Copies of email conversations, customer support tickets, recorded phone calls with service centers, chat interactions through apps or websites, and complaint submissions.
HR files, performance reviews, internal incident reports, and security footage involving the individual on company premises.
Purchase details including receipts, payment methods, time and location of sales, cashier identifiers, and customer loyalty ID linkage at checkout.
Records of consent given for marketing emails or texts, responses to promotional offers, feedback provided via surveys, and data collected from contests or sweepstakes participation.
Information related to rewards programs, such as earned points, redeemed rewards, purchase frequency, and shopping preferences, is tracked through loyalty accounts.
Detailed records of browsing behavior on retailer websites or apps, abandoned carts, past purchases, search queries, wish lists, and personalization data.
Each of these data types could contain sensitive personal information or third-party details, meaning retailers must not only retrieve the data but also carefully review and redact any non-requester information before fulfilling a DSAR.
The complexity and volume of data spread across physical stores, digital channels, and back-end systems make the fulfillment process even more challenging without the right technology and processes in place.
Handling DSAR Requests in Retail might seem simple at first glance until the real-world challenges start piling up. Retailers are facing not just a rising number of requests, but also heavier workloads, escalating costs, and complicated data types like surveillance footage that require careful redaction.
This section will break down the three biggest hurdles making DSAR management difficult today: the rapid growth in request volumes, the steep time and cost burdens, and the tricky redaction demands associated with video surveillance and sensitive customer data.
DSAR volumes are growing fast. Between 2021 and 2023, there was a 246% increase in DSAR submissions.
Retailers, especially those in B2C and ecommerce sectors, are heavily targeted because:
For example, a chain like TJ Morris (Home Bargains), operating nearly 600 stores, could easily face hundreds of DSARs per month.
Manual DSAR handling is incredibly expensive:
Hiring external data privacy consultants can be costly, as their expertise is often required to handle complex DSARs and ensure compliance. In fact, 69.5% of DPOs report that a significant portion of their DSAR budgets is spent on these consultants.
Retailers use surveillance cameras for theft prevention, customer safety, and analytics, but those cameras are now major liabilities when DSARs come in.
Customers request footage for:
Before sharing, retailers must redact every unrelated person, license plate, badge, and screen capture in the footage.
For example, one DSAR for parking lot footage could require blurring dozens of cars and shoppers caught in the background, a task almost impossible to handle manually at scale.
When responding to DSARs, protecting other individuals’ privacy is critical. Before releasing data, retailers must redact:
For example, if an accident in a store aisle was recorded, the footage must be carefully edited to blur other customers’ faces before sharing with the requester.
Successfully implementing AI-powered redaction isn’t just about using the right tool; it’s also about setting up the right workflows and habits across your organization. From how you intake DSARs to how you secure and audit the redacted files, every step matters for maintaining GDPR compliance and operational efficiency.
Retailers should establish a single, secure intake system for all DSARs. Centralization ensures every request is properly logged, assigned, and tracked from start to finish. This eliminates the risk of missing requests scattered across emails, forms, or customer service channels. A centralized system also simplifies audits by keeping all DSAR activity in one place.
Rather than reviewing and redacting one file at a time, retailers should take advantage of AI-powered bulk redaction capabilities. Processing multiple videos, images, or documents in batches significantly speeds up the DSAR response timeline. It also ensures consistent application of privacy protection standards across large data volumes, reducing the chance of human error.
Security must be built into every step of the DSAR workflow. Retailers should encrypt all redacted files, limit access to authorized users only, and enforce authentication measures like Single Sign-On (SSO). Protecting the redacted data ensures that even while fulfilling DSARs, organizations continue to safeguard sensitive customer information against unauthorized exposure.
Every action taken during the DSAR fulfillment process should be automatically recorded and stored. Audit trails create a defensible record that proves compliance with GDPR requirements. Tracking who accessed, edited, reviewed, or shared files helps demonstrate accountability and transparency during regulatory reviews or internal audits.
Efficient DSAR fulfillment starts with capturing incident data accurately and quickly. Store managers and frontline staff should be trained to document key incident details, such as timestamps, locations, and surveillance camera IDs, in a standardized way.
This makes it much easier for compliance teams to locate relevant footage when DSARs are submitted, improving overall response efficiency.
As the volume and complexity of DSAR Requests in Retail continue to grow, relying on manual redaction methods is no longer sustainable. Retailers need a faster, more reliable way to protect sensitive information while meeting strict GDPR deadlines.
This is where AI-powered redaction software comes into play. For retail DSAR workflows, AI-powered redaction can transform tedious, error-prone tasks into efficient, scalable processes that protect both your customers' privacy and your organization’s reputation.
AI-powered redaction is like having a smart assistant for every video and document review. It automatically:
Instead of manually editing frame-by-frame, AI lets you process requests in hours, not weeks.
Meeting the demands of DSAR Requests in Retail is not getting easier. However, implementing VIDIZMO’s AI-powered redaction for retail makes it simpler, faster, and compliant with GDPR.
VIDIZMO’s redaction solution offers everything a retailer needs to manage the growing flood of DSARs efficiently. With powerful AI technology and features designed specifically for surveillance-heavy environments like retail, VIDIZMO makes privacy protection easy and scalable.
The following are the features Vidizmo Redactor offers for retail:
Quickly detect and blur faces, license plates, vehicles, screens, and other identifiers across surveillance footage.
Advanced AI models not only find sensitive elements but also track them automatically across moving frames.
Redact hundreds of videos or images simultaneously to handle large DSAR volumes.
Process footage from both modern and legacy surveillance systems without format issues.
Redact personal data from documents, scanned files, and screen recordings using optical character recognition (OCR).
Restrict who can access, view, and edit redacted files using strong authentication and permissions.
Ensure secure storage and sharing of all redacted files with encryption and single sign-on (SSO).
Maintain complete logs showing every action taken during redaction and DSAR fulfillment, ready for GDPR audits.
VIDIZMO empowers retailers to protect customer privacy, respond to DSARs faster, and avoid the skyrocketing costs of manual compliance.
By choosing a solution built specifically for real-world retail challenges, organizations can turn a painful process into a manageable, scalable, and compliant operation.
Handling DSAR Requests in Retail is no longer a side task; it’s a mission-critical priority. With GDPR enforcement getting stricter and customer awareness rising, retailers must rethink how they manage personal data requests.
Manual methods are simply too costly, slow, and risky to keep up with the growing demand. That's why forward-thinking retailers are embracing AI-powered redaction for retail to automate, secure, and accelerate DSAR fulfillment without burning out their teams.
Implementing a specialized solution like VIDIZMO’s AI-powered redaction can be the difference between struggling to stay compliant and confidently leading your industry in customer privacy protection.
Explore how VIDIZMO can help your organization manage DSARs at scale, protect sensitive data, and future-proof your GDPR compliance.
What are DSAR requests in retail?
They are formal requests where individuals ask retailers to share personal data collected about them, like loyalty card activity, online shopping history, or store surveillance footage.
How long do retailers have to fulfill a DSAR?
Retailers must respond within one month. Extensions are allowed only if the case is complex, and the requester must be informed.
Can customers request CCTV footage through a DSAR?
Yes. If a customer appears in surveillance footage, they can request it under GDPR, but unrelated faces must be redacted first.
What types of information need redaction before DSAR sharing?
Faces, license plates, company badges, tattoos, computer screens, and anything that identifies others must be blurred.
Why are DSAR requests increasing in retail?
Customers are more aware of GDPR rights, and retailers collect massive amounts of personal data daily.
How does AI-powered redaction help with DSARs?
It automates redacting sensitive details, making DSAR processing faster, safer, and compliant.
What happens if a DSAR is ignored or mishandled?
Retailers can face fines of up to €20 million or 4% of their global annual revenue.
Does AI-powered redaction work with old surveillance systems?
Yes. Top AI tools support both legacy and modern video formats.
Is AI-powered redaction easy for non-technical users?
Yes. Good platforms are simple enough for DPOs, compliance teams, and store managers to use without deep IT expertise.