Scaling Privacy Risk Management with Microsoft Tools

For many organisations, the privacy assessment process including Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) is recognised as an essential part of managing risk, yet the reality of how it is often carried out tells a different story.

In many cases in New Zealand the process is still manual, time-consuming and inconsistent, relying on long word documents and repeated follow-ups. As a result, it tends to happen late in the project lifecycle, when changes are costly and the opportunity to meaningfully influence design has already passed.

What many teams don’t realise is that automating the privacy assessment process does not require new, expensive technology or a complete overhaul of systems. In fact, the building blocks for an effective, automated approach already exist within most organisations. Widely available tools in the Microsoft Suite such as Microsoft Forms, Excel and Power Automate can be brought together in a way that transforms the privacy assessment from a bureaucratic hurdle into a streamlined, value-adding process.

Using Microsoft Forms as the starting point, organisations can create a structured and intuitive way for project teams to submit information. Conditional logic means that only relevant questions are displayed, guiding users through the assessment in a way that feels less daunting and more logical using plain language questions. This ensures that the right information is collected from the outset, improving both completeness and quality. Our experience indicates using a structured form to capture the information tends to reduce the time to write privacy assessments down from days into less than an hour.

Once in Excel predefined logic can take on much of the heavy lifting. Risks can be identified automatically using logic and mitigations proposed. What previously required slow, manual review becomes a near-instant initial analysis, allowing privacy teams to focus their time on judgement, decision-making and strategic oversight rather than administrative tasks. Using this method of risk identification tends to take the privacy review process down from days to less than an hour for review.

Another significant advantage of this approach is the ability to generate meaningful insight with very little additional effort. When privacy assessments exist in a structured format rather than scattered documents, they can be analysed and reported on in real time. Organisations can quickly identify trends, recurring risks and areas of concern, while also tracking progress over time. This level of visibility strengthens governance, supports more informed decision-making at a senior level and provides tangible evidence of accountability when required by regulators or auditors.

Perhaps most importantly, automating the privacy assessment process has a positive impact on engagement and culture. When the process is simple, intuitive and not overly time-consuming, people are far more likely to complete it properly and at the right stage of a project. This encourages earlier consideration of privacy, better design choices and greater awareness of privacy responsibilities across the organisation. Rather than being seen as an obstacle, privacy assessments become a practical tool that supports safer innovation.

The reality is that organisations do not need to wait for perfect systems or significant budgets to improve the way they manage privacy risk. By being more intentional about how existing tools are used and connected, it is possible to build an automated, efficient and scalable privacy assessment process that reduces burden, strengthens compliance and builds trust with customers and stakeholders alike.