Data Confidence for privacy-first innovators

We help ambitious teams solve complex privacy, data, security and AI governance challenges — bringing strategic thinking, practical assurance and hands-on delivery together to help products launch, businesses scale with compliance confidence and data opportunities move forward.

how we help

We start with what you’re trying to achieve, work out what needs to be true to make it possible, and build the practical privacy, data governance and assurance foundations to get you there.

That might mean designing privacy into a product, solving a difficult data-use question, getting Minimum Viable Compliance (MVC) in place, preparing for expansion into US or European markets, implementing governance or giving customers and investors confidence in how you handle data.

Behind our work sits DCQ™ (Data Confidence Quotient), our approach for bringing privacy, security, AI governance, regulatory and technical perspectives together to identify what matters, close meaningful gaps and turn complexity into practical action.

Security shield with DCQ logo in the center, surrounded by icons of a lock, a gear, a brain with circuits, and a shield with a checkmark, representing cybersecurity and data protection.

OUR SERVICES

Choose the right level of support for what you need now.

Our packages

  • Know what stands up. Fix what doesn’t. Prove it when it matters.

    When an investor, enterprise customer, partner or leadership team needs confidence that your privacy, data and AI practices meet relevant requirements and stand up to scrutiny, our Data Confidence™ Assessment provides an independent diagnostic of where you stand and what needs attention.

    We baseline your current position against the requirements that matter: from global privacy laws and regulatory requirements to customer commitments, data governance, data flows and relevant technical controls. We look at the evidence, identify the real gaps and separate material risk from compliance noise.

    Use it for investor or buyer diligence, enterprise customer assurance, new-market readiness, AI and data risk, or as an independent health check before the questions arrive.

    Typical outputs

    • Independent Data Confidence™ Assessment: evidence-based report pack and tailored to your context

    • Executive report: clear, credible and shareable where appropriate

    • Compliance & control gap analysis: what stands up, what doesn’t and what matters

    • Risk-based findings: with evidence and rationale behind key decisions

    • Prioritised remediation plan & roadmap: what to fix now, next and later

    • Data Confidence™ baseline: a repeatable benchmark and DCQ™ score to demonstrate progress over time

    The impact: Know where you stand, address key gaps and risks, and demonstrate your data and compliance readiness when customers, investors or partners ask.

  • Solve the issue. Close the gaps. Put the right foundations in place.

    A focused, hands-on delivery engagement when you need to solve a specific data, privacy or AI governance challenge, or get proportionate compliance foundations in place quickly.

    We work directly with your team to work out what’s needed, make the difficult decisions and deliver the practical outputs to get you there. That might mean building a Minimum Viable Compliance (MVC) toolkit, resolving a difficult data-use question, completing a DPIA, redesigning a data flow, strengthening AI governance, closing customer diligence gaps or getting ready for a new market.

    We bring business, product, technology, privacy and regulatory thinking together, keeping the work proportionate to your stage, risk and commercial goals.

    Typical outputs

    • Minimum Viable Compliance (MVC) toolkit: the core policies, privacy notices, records and governance you actually need

    • DPIAs, AI and data-risk assessments: ready to use

    • Privacy-by-Design controls & data flows - designed around the product and technology

    • Customer & third-party compliance evidence to support diligence and commercial conversations

    • Policies, playbooks & governance: practical tools your team can work with

    • Key gaps closed, not just identified

    • Prioritised roadmap: what needs doing now, and what can sensibly wait

    The impact: Walk away with the compliance foundations in place. The right foundations, evidence and practical toolkit to support your product, customers and next stage of growth.

  • Take a complex data ambition from strategy through to delivery.

    For bigger challenges where there are multiple moving parts, stakeholders or markets and you need experienced people to design the approach and stay with you through delivery.

    We work alongside business, product, technology and legal teams to turn an ambitious data or AI objective into something workable. We shape the strategy, work through privacy and regulatory complexity, design the governance and controls, and deliver the practical frameworks, tools and evidence needed to make it happen.

    A Project might involve designing privacy into a new product or platform, building a global privacy or data/AI governance programme, implementing privacy technology, enabling a complex research or data partnership, supporting US–European market entry and launch readiness, or transforming how an organisation governs and uses sensitive data.

    Typical outputs

    • Strategy & target operating model: what good looks like and how to get there

    • Privacy, data & AI governance frameworks: designed around the organisation and its ambitions

    • Product & Privacy-by-Design: data flows, requirements, controls and decision-making built into delivery

    • Global compliance frameworks & playbooks: practical approaches that work across markets

    • Research & data partnership frameworks: permissions, safeguards, governance and operating models

    • Policies, processes & practical toolkits: built for teams to actually use

    • Implementation roadmap & delivery support: priorities, owners and hands-on support through execution

    The impact: Turn a complex data or AI ambition into a working solution -with the strategy, governance, compliance and practical tools in place to launch, partner, expand or scale with confidence.

  • Privacy isn’t what your policy says. It’s what your product does.

    We test the real privacy experience across your websites, apps, wearables and digital products, finding the gaps between what you intend, what you tell people and what actually happens.

    Using our DCQ™ methodology, we examine real product and user journeys across privacy, data governance, security, AI and regulatory requirements — identifying where the experience stands up, where gaps exist and what matters most. Where appropriate, we bring in specialist technical security testing through trusted partners, providing a joined-up view of readiness without unnecessary compliance overhead.

    Use it for product launches, health and sensitive-data products, AI applications, multi-market digital estates, regulatory readiness, customer or investor diligence, or simply to find privacy issues before someone else does.

    Typical outputs

    • Privacy Pen Test™ report: clear, evidence-based findings from real product and user journeys

    • Privacy experience review: where transparency, choice, data collection and product behaviour align, and where they don’t

    • Market & jurisdiction heatmap: a visual view of readiness across the markets that matter

    • Priority findings: practical, risk-based issues backed by evidence

    • Remediation plan: what to fix now, next and later

    • DCQ™ baseline: a repeatable benchmark to support remediation, re-testing and ongoing improvement

    The impact: Find the privacy gaps hidden between policy and practice, fix what matters and build confidence that your product works as intended: for users, customers and the markets you operate in.

  • Senior expertise when you need it. Embedded in your team.

    For organisations that need experienced privacy, data or AI governance leadership, but don’t need, or aren’t ready for, another full-time senior hire.

    We can step in as your fractional Chief Privacy Officer, Chief Trust Officer, DPO or senior data and AI governance adviser, working as an extension of your leadership and delivery teams.

    We establish the right foundations, provide ongoing oversight and get involved in the work: supporting product and commercial decisions, navigating difficult data uses, overseeing governance, responding to customer and investor scrutiny, preparing for new markets and translating regulatory change into practical action.

    The model flexes as you grow — from a few days of senior input each month to more embedded support during periods of change, growth or increased scrutiny.

    Typical support

    • Fractional CPO / Chief Trust Officer: senior leadership across privacy, data governance, AI and trust

    • DPO services: independent oversight, advice and regulatory responsibilities where required

    • Data & AI governance: practical governance, risk and decision-making

    • Product & Privacy-by-Design: senior input into products, features and new data uses

    • Commercial & strategic support: enterprise customers, diligence, partnerships, investment and deals

    • Regulatory & market change: turning new requirements into practical action

    • Team capability: coaching, guidance and support for internal teams

    The impact: Senior capability without the full-time hire, helping you make better decisions, stay ahead of risk and build the trust and governance needed to grow.

OUR Case Studies

Experience that translates into impact.

From helping health data move forward and designing privacy into AI products, to unlocking sensitive data for research and making global privacy complexity workable, our experience spans some of the hardest data challenges.

  • Healthtech & Life Sciences · Clinical Research · NHS · Data Partnerships

    We bring deep experience of helping organisations navigate health and other highly sensitive data: from early-stage healthtech, femtech, biotech and NHS-facing products to international clinical research, data partnerships and global health-data programmes.

    Our work has included acting as DPO and senior privacy adviser, designing privacy-first products and data models, supporting startups through NHS requirements, and developing anonymisation and de-identification approaches, including complex DPIAs and contextual assessments around the disclosure and use of clinical and research data.

    We’ve also supported European clinical trials and research programmes, including developing multi-country privacy and consent playbooks that translate overarching requirements into practical guidance for local teams. This can involve navigating GDPR, the EU Clinical Trials Regulation, informed consent, local requirements, secondary use and research-data governance.

    Increasingly, the landscape also includes the European Health Data Space (EHDS), with its new framework for accessing and reusing electronic health data for research and innovation being introduced progressively.

    Our approach is to look at the whole picture: the data, technology, clinical or research context, patients and participants, governance and regulatory pathway, and work out what needs to be true for the data to move forward responsibly.

    Delivered

    Privacy & consent playbooks · complex DPIAs & contextual anonymisation assessments · health-data strategy & flows · anonymisation & de-identification · Privacy-by-Design · clinical & research data governance · NHS readiness · DPO support · third-party assurance

    Impact

    Turns complex health, clinical and research-data requirements into practical frameworks teams can actually implement, supporting product development, clinical trials, research, partnerships, enterprise sales and international scale.

    (Their) “Knowledge of data security and support in the minefield of the NHS has been essential to our company.”

    Founder & CEO, healthtech startup working with the NHS
    Previous client engagement

  • University of Edinburgh DDI / UNICEF · Vulnerable children · Responsible data use

    We contributed to work supporting responsible data sharing and research involving children and vulnerable populations, turning complex questions around privacy, ethics and safeguarding into practical frameworks teams could actually use.

    The wider Data for Children Collaborative is a partnership between the University of Edinburgh, UNICEF and the Scottish Government, using data and innovative data-science approaches to address challenges affecting children. Edinburgh DataShare

    Our work included data-sharing guidance, governance frameworks and DPIA tools, considering not simply whether data could be used, but the context, potential harms, transparency and safeguards needed to use it responsibly.

    Delivered
    Responsible data-sharing frameworks · DPIA templates · governance · practical guidance & protocols

    Impact
    Helped translate complex principles around children’s data into practical decision-making tools for real-world use.

  • University of Edinburgh / Data-Driven Innovation · Financial data · Anonymisation

    During the pandemic, we helped design the privacy and data-governance approach for an ambitious programme seeking to unlock sensitive banking data for longitudinal research into the economic impact of COVID-19.

    Working across government, regulators, banking, research, data science and technology, the work combined privacy and regulatory thinking with the practical design of the data environment including anonymisation and contextual risk assessment, end-to-end data governance, research access and safe disclosure.

    Delivered
    Anonymisation & context assessment · data governance framework · end-to-end data-sharing model · research access · safe disclosure controls

    Impact
    Helped create a responsible pathway for highly sensitive financial data to generate research and public-policy value.

  • AI & Emerging Technology · Product Design · Privacy-by-Design

    We work with founders, product and technical teams while products and data models are still being shaped , particularly where AI, sensitive data or novel technology creates questions without an obvious playbook.

    We look across the whole system: what data is actually needed, how it flows, the legal and regulatory pathway, governance, security and technical controls, and what transparency, consent and choice should feel like for the people actually using the product.

    Our experience includes helping AI-enabled technology companies build privacy and responsible-data foundations from the ground up: mapping end-to-end data flows, shaping privacy-first data models, working through complex DPIAs and AI assessments, designing testing guardrails and user journeys, and creating practical governance that can evolve with the product.

    As products move from testing to launch and international growth, we help teams navigate frameworks including UK GDPR/GDPR, responsible AI and assurance requirements, the EU AI Act and relevant US privacy requirements: translating them into practical product and data decisions rather than separate compliance exercises.

    Delivered
    Privacy-first data strategy · end-to-end data models & flows · complex DPIAs · privacy-led AI assessments · testing guardrails · transparency, consent & user journeys · governance · international readiness roadmaps

    Impact
    Helps teams build, test and scale ambitious products with privacy and responsible AI designed in from the outset, rather than retrofitted later.

  • International organisations & technology · Global → Local

    We’ve designed and supported privacy programmes across Europe, the UK, North America, Latin America, Asia and Australia, working across different regulatory environments and operating models: from global organisations to scaling technology businesses.

    Our experience spans GDPR and UK GDPR, US state-by-state privacy requirements, Brazil’s LGPD, cross-border data, international governance, customer data architecture and global DPO/privacy support, alongside navigating local privacy requirements across Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Australia.

    Rather than multiplying policies and processes market by market, we work out what can remain global, what genuinely needs to change locally, and how those requirements translate into products, websites, vendors, data flows and day-to-day decisions.

    Delivered
    Global privacy frameworks · country/state requirements & heatmaps · local implementation guidance · data governance · policies & notices · training · ongoing DPO support

    Impact
    Turns complex international requirements into a coherent, practical global framework, with local differences addressed where they actually matter.

    “As an organisation with a complex global structure, data protection compliance seemed like a daunting topic to tackle, but Trace was able to break the issues down in simple bite-sized chunks.”

    Richard Hart, WWF International
    Previous experience through Trace

  • Digital health · Adtech · Multi-state privacy · Customer assurance

    A US digital health business needed greater confidence in how privacy was working across a large portfolio of consumer websites and to provide assurance to customers and partners operating in an increasingly complex US privacy environment.

    We tested real digital journeys across multiple properties, examining how sensitive and other consumer data was collected, how advertising and tracking technologies behaved, what users were told, the choices available to them and whether the experience aligned with applicable state requirements.

    Alongside the testing, we developed a US privacy heatmap to identify where requirements and risk differed by state. We then worked with the team to remediate priority findings, improve consent and privacy configurations and strengthen controls across the digital estate.

    Delivered: Multi-site privacy testing · US privacy heatmap · adtech & tracking review · consent & user-journey testing · prioritised findings · remediation & control improvements

    Impact: Found and fixed privacy gaps across a complex digital estate, helping the business strengthen its controls and give customers and partners greater confidence in how consumer data was handled.

how we think

Outcome first

We start with what you’re trying to achieve — then work out what needs to be true to make it possible.

Global Thinking, Local Reality

We apply global principles to the regulatory, cultural and operational realities of the markets where you actually operate.

Privacy-First. Human by Design

We take a pragmatic, risk-based approach while keeping the people behind the data in view — designing transparency, choice and safeguards around the real experience.