Home / Services / AI landscape management
Data security with OpenText Voltage
Before customer and staff data reaches your analytics, agents and AI models, you need to know where it is and make sure it is protected. Flex Consulting implements OpenText Voltage to find and classify sensitive data, then protect it field by field, so it stays usable for the work and useless to anyone who should not have it.
Why data needs protecting before it reaches AI
Analytics platforms, AI models and agents all want access to as much data as possible. In most large organisations that data includes names, addresses, IRD and account numbers, health details and card data, spread across databases, file shares, SharePoint and email, often in places nobody has catalogued. Once it is copied into a data warehouse, a training set or an agent's context, it is much harder to control.
OpenText Voltage takes a data-centric approach. It discovers and classifies sensitive data across structured and unstructured sources, then protects individual fields with format-preserving encryption or tokenisation. Protected values keep their original format, so systems, reports and models can still use them, while the real values are only revealed to people and processes you authorise. Flex Consulting implements Voltage as part of our AI landscape management work.
What Voltage changes
You know where sensitive data is
Discovery and classification across databases, file shares and collaboration tools show what personal and confidential data you hold, where it sits and how risky it is.
Data stays usable
Format-preserving protection keeps field lengths, types and relationships intact, so applications, analytics and AI work on protected data without being rewritten.
Exposure matters less
If a protected dataset is copied, leaked or sent to the wrong tool, the sensitive fields are encrypted or tokenised rather than readable.
Support for Privacy Act obligations
Field-level protection is a practical safeguard under the Privacy Act 2020, including when data is stored by cloud providers or used offshore.
Where we use Voltage
Common first pieces of work for large New Zealand organisations:
Sensitive data discovery
A scan of priority databases, file shares and SharePoint sites to find and classify personal and confidential data, with a risk view for each location.
Preparing data for AI
Sensitive fields de-identified or protected before data is used to train, ground or feed AI models and agents.
Protecting analytics platforms
Customer fields protected as data lands in cloud platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, so analysts work on protected values.
Safer test and partner data
Production data protected before it is copied into test environments or shared with partners and auditors, while keeping the joins between tables intact.
Data clean-up
Redundant and out-of-date sensitive data identified for deletion or archiving, so there is less to protect and less to lose.
Automation and agent access
Robots and agents given access to protected data by default, with real values revealed only where a step genuinely needs them.
Voltage and the Privacy Act 2020
Two of the information privacy principles are especially relevant when data moves into analytics and AI.
IPP5: storage and security
An agency that holds personal information must protect it with safeguards that are reasonable in the circumstances against loss, unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure, and other misuse. Where it gives information to a service provider, it must do everything reasonably within its power to prevent unauthorised use or disclosure. Read IPP5 at privacy.org.nz
IPP12: disclosure outside New Zealand
Personal information can only be disclosed to an overseas recipient in limited cases, for example where the recipient is subject to comparable privacy safeguards or the individual has authorised it after being told the information may not be protected. Read IPP12 at privacy.org.nz
Encryption and tokenisation do not make an organisation compliant on their own, and you should take advice on your specific obligations. They are, however, a strong technical safeguard: if sensitive fields are protected before data reaches a cloud platform or AI service, far less personal information is exposed if something goes wrong.
What Voltage includes
OpenText Voltage is a family of data security products. We help you choose the components that match your data, your platforms and your risks.
OpenText Voltage Data Security Platform
Sensitive data discovery and data security posture management. It connects to structured sources such as SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, PostgreSQL and MySQL, and unstructured sources such as Exchange, SharePoint and Google Drive, classifies what it finds, and scores risk by location, type and sensitivity. It can then protect, delete, export or place data on legal hold, and de-identify data used with AI and machine learning models.
OpenText Voltage SecureData Servers
Field-level protection using NIST-approved AES FF1 format-preserving encryption and high-performance tokenisation. Protected data keeps its format and referential integrity, can be analysed without decrypting it, and keys are derived on demand rather than stored. Integrations include AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Snowflake, Databricks, Teradata, Hadoop and Trino.
Other SecureData products
The SecureData family also includes SecureData Sentry, SecureData Payments, SecureData z/Protect and SecureData APIs, for specific applications and environments.
OpenText Voltage Structured Data Manager
Compliance and control of structured data across its lifecycle, from creation through to disposal.
How we implement Voltage
Discover
We scan agreed data sources, classify the sensitive data we find and produce a risk view, starting with the systems that feed analytics, automation and AI.
Design
With your privacy, security and data teams we decide which fields to protect, which method to use for each, and who can see real values.
Protect
We implement Voltage protection in the data flows that matter most, test that applications, reports and models still work, and prove it on one system first.
Extend and monitor
We roll protection out to further sources, keep discovery running as new data and tools arrive, and report on progress to your leadership.
Why Flex Consulting
Flex Consulting is an OpenText partner. We build automation and AI agents for large New Zealand organisations, so we know how data actually moves between core systems, robots, agents and analytics platforms in practice. That means we protect data in the places it really flows, not only where the architecture diagram says it does.
Voltage is one part of our AI landscape management work, alongside orchestration on UiPath and code security with OpenText Fortify.
Questions we are asked
What is OpenText Voltage?
OpenText Voltage is a family of data security products. The Voltage Data Security Platform discovers and classifies sensitive data across structured and unstructured sources and scores the risk. Voltage SecureData protects individual data fields with format-preserving encryption and tokenisation, so the data stays usable in applications, analytics and AI.
What is format-preserving encryption?
Format-preserving encryption protects a value while keeping its original format, so an encrypted 16-digit card number is still 16 digits. Databases, applications and analytics can keep working on the protected data without changes, and only authorised users or processes can see the real value. OpenText Voltage uses the NIST-approved AES FF1 method.
How do I protect personal information before using it with AI?
Find and classify the sensitive data first, then remove what you do not need and protect the rest at the field level with encryption, tokenisation or de-identification before it reaches an AI model or agent. In New Zealand this supports your security obligations under IPP5 of the Privacy Act 2020, and helps when data is processed overseas under IPP12.
Find out where your sensitive data is going
Talk to us about the analytics, automation and AI projects that need your data. We will show you where it is exposed and how Voltage would protect it.