We’re implementing a case management solution on Power Platform for handling customer complaints and regulatory inquiries in a financial services context. The challenge we’re facing is balancing robust API security with compliance requirements that sometimes seem at odds with each other.
Our compliance team requires complete audit trails showing who accessed what data and when, including API calls. However, our security team wants to minimize data exposure through APIs and implement strict role-based access controls that could limit the granularity of audit logging.
For example, we need to comply with GDPR data subject access requests, which require us to produce all data related to a specific individual. But our security model uses data segregation where case handlers only see cases in their queue, and the API enforces this through row-level security. When we run a GDPR extraction, should we use a privileged API account that bypasses these security controls, or is there a better pattern?
How are others handling the tension between API security best practices and regulatory compliance requirements in case management scenarios?
The dedicated compliance API endpoint is an interesting approach. How do you handle the operational burden of reviewing all those alerts? We process 50-100 GDPR requests monthly, so if every extraction triggers a security review, that’s significant overhead. Also, does the multi-factor authentication requirement slow down the extraction process significantly?
The purpose-based access control concept is compelling. Does Power Platform support this natively or did you build custom middleware to intercept API calls and enforce the purpose parameter? Also, how do you prevent users from simply claiming ‘regulatory_compliance’ as the purpose for normal operations to bypass controls?
Role-based access control and comprehensive audit trails are not mutually exclusive - you just need to design your security model properly from the start. Power Platform’s Dataverse supports field-level security and audit logging simultaneously. The audit log captures the user identity, the data accessed, and the permission level that allowed the access. For GDPR requests, create a specific security role called ‘Compliance Auditor’ that has read-only access across all case data but every use of this role is logged and reviewed monthly.
I think you’re approaching this from the wrong angle. Instead of trying to reconcile security and compliance after the fact, design your case management data model with both requirements in mind from the beginning. Use Dataverse’s built-in data classification features to tag fields as personally identifiable information, and then create automated workflows that handle GDPR extractions within the security framework. The API should enforce security and compliance simultaneously, not trade one for the other. Power Platform 2024 Wave 2 has enhanced DLP policies that can help with this.
One pattern we’ve implemented successfully is the concept of ‘purpose-based access control’ layered on top of RBAC. When someone accesses case data through the API, they must specify the purpose (normal operations, compliance request, audit, etc.). The system grants access based on both their role and the stated purpose, and the purpose is logged in the audit trail. For GDPR requests, the purpose is ‘regulatory_compliance’ and this automatically triggers additional logging and review workflows without requiring a separate privileged account.
The privileged account approach is common but risky. We use a dedicated compliance API endpoint that has elevated permissions but requires multi-factor authentication and generates detailed audit logs. Every call to this endpoint triggers an alert to our security operations team. This way, GDPR extractions are possible but heavily monitored and controlled. The key is making the compliance operations visible and auditable rather than trying to hide them.