Customer data stays out for software companies.

The way software gets made and maintained

The decisions of an engineering team are written down at length:

• Your repos and the commits behind them
• Pull requests with the reviews they received
• Every ticket and bug, start to resolution
• Build and test history
• Notes on architecture and on releases

Your code stays in your repos

None of your original files ever leave your systems. You are never asked for tokens, credentials or repo access. License Your Data handles the copy, and a sample needs your approval before anything goes out. If a product or repo is core to you, you can keep it out.

When tickets and logs hold customer data

Account details and customer names often show up in logs and support threads. In the copy, placeholders replace each person, customer and company, as well as addresses and account numbers. You can also exclude a repository, a tool or a span of time outright.

Keeping client code out

When you write software for clients, the code may be theirs. Each project like that can be excluded on its own. Whether your agreements allow any client work is for your company and its lawyers to judge, and legal advice on it is not something we offer. What you own is usually an easier place to start, and internal tools often carry history that is equally useful.

A good place to begin

The estimate comes first. On the first short call, describe which repositories are your own products, which hold client work, and which tools carry customer conversations. In most cases the list is enough to set scope. Your engineers can keep releasing throughout, since nobody needs entry to your systems. If your security lead or counsel wants to review the sample, that happens before anything goes out. You can stop at any point before you approve, and nothing has been shared.