What is a PII Catalog Self-Hosted?

This is why a PII catalog matters. And why running it self-hosted puts you in control.

What is a PII Catalog Self-Hosted?
A PII catalog is the index of all personally identifiable information in your systems — names, emails, IDs, IP addresses, payment details, every sensitive record. A self-hosted PII catalog runs inside your own infrastructure. No third-party cloud. No vendor lock-in. Your data stays where you decide.

Why Self-Host Your PII Catalog?
Self-hosting lets you enforce stricter access controls. The tooling lives behind your firewall. Compliance audits become faster because you can trace every detection step. You decide update cycles. You control retention policies. You control the encryption keys. This removes the risk of external breaches in shared SaaS environments.

Key Benefits of a Self-Hosted PII Catalog

  • Full Data Sovereignty – Store and process detection logic locally.
  • Custom Rules – Define what counts as PII for your organization without working around vendor schemas.
  • Integration Freedom – Connect to internal apps, legacy databases, private APIs.
  • Performance Control – Optimize scanning schedules and resource allocation for your workloads.

Building Your Self-Hosted PII Catalog
Choose software that supports automated scanning across structured and unstructured data sources. It should have strong regex and ML-based classifiers. Support for audit logs is non-negotiable. Containerized deployment ensures reproducibility. Monitor resource usage. Run scheduled catalog updates. Document every schema revision. Test regularly to ensure the patterns catch new PII types that emerge from product changes.

Security and Compliance
A self-hosted PII catalog strengthens GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA compliance. It provides an immediate list of affected records in case of a breach. With internal hosting, you can link your catalog directly to incident response tools without routing data across external networks.

The risks of PII leakage are real. So is the need to track it with precision inside your own walls. Self-hosting is the clearest path to ownership, control, and security.

See how it works in minutes. Launch a self-hosted PII catalog with hoop.dev and keep your sensitive data in your hands.