Data Collection

The customer decides when and where personal data is collected within their business processes. SQL statements and Informix utilities are used by the customer to present the data to Informix for any desired processing, access, or storage within Informix as required by their business. How and where such personal data is stored within an Informix database is likewise determined by the customer.

The only personal data required by Informix itself is during the authentication process and this information is not stored within Informix. Authentication occurs during any attempt to connect to a database and Informix requires the presentation of an external user ID and credentials (e.g. password) for authentication purposes. This information is passed by Informix to the external authentication service identified by the customer during Informix configuration and, assuming a successful authentication, this service will then provide Informix with the individual and group Informix authorization IDs associated with that specific user in its records. This latter information is associated in Informix memory with that specific connection for the life of the connection.

Once personal data is stored within a database, Informix processing can interact with it in the following ways:

Backup

Informix provides its customers with the ability to backup the data contents of a database, or part of a database, to an independent file in a customer defined location. This backup file will contain any customer data located in the specified Informix source location (e.g. database or tablespace) at the time of the backup request.

Transaction logs

Informix transaction logs, used for recovering a database after a failure or recovering to a specific point-in-time from a database backup, can contain some of the personal data collected by Informix about the connection which made the change(s) as well as any personal data in the customer-specified data that was changed. Informix provides the customer the ability to define a location where Informix will archive old transaction logs for long-term storage.

Audit logs

If Informix Audit is enabled by the customer, the audit logs will contain some of the personal data associated with the connection by Informix.

Diagnostic information

For diagnostic purposes, the contents of the Informix diagnostic log (location set by MSGPATH) can contain some of the personal data associated with the connection by Informix. As well, in the event of a service event occurring within Informix (e.g. an unexpected error or termination), additional diagnostic files can be created; these files can contain the personal data associated with the connection by Informix as well as any customer-specified personal data revealed through SQL statement text in the form of literals or data arguments provided for host variables or parameter markers in the SQL statement.

Monitoring

Some Informix monitoring interfaces can be used to access both the personal data associated with the connection by Informix as well as any customer-specified personal data revealed through SQL statement text in the form of literals or data arguments provided for host variables or parameter markers in the SQL statement.

Database catalog tables

Certain actions can result in Informix recording the Informix authorization ID associated with the currently connected user into its internal catalog tables as a record of ownership or permanent permission for that authorization ID. Examples of these actions include the creation of a database object or the granting of a database permission by or for the connected user.

Informix configuration files

As part of its database manager and database configuration files, Informix can request information related to IP addresses and user IDs needed to access other (non-Informix) services.