Project management software often holds more than tasks. It can collect customer names, contracts, internal decisions, attachments, credentials pasted into comments, and a detailed map of who is working on what. Review the system as a shared records environment: minimize sensitive content, grant the least access needed, secure accounts, control integrations, and prove that data can be recovered and removed.
Map spaces, people, and data
Inventory every workspace, project, board, guest account, public link, integration, automation, and export location. Identify the business owner and technical administrator for each area. Classify information before deciding where it belongs. Passwords, recovery codes, full payment details, medical information, and regulated customer records should not be placed in ordinary task descriptions simply because the tool is convenient.
Use the NIST Privacy Framework as a practical prompt to identify the data being processed, the people affected, the purpose for keeping it, and the systems or vendors that receive it. This turns a vague privacy review into a documented map of collection, use, sharing, and retention.
Test permissions with real accounts
Do not judge access from role names alone. Atlassian's Jira permission guidance distinguishes space access and configuration permissions, work-item permissions, time-tracking permissions, and work-item security schemes. Other platforms use different labels, but the review question is the same: what can this particular user see, change, export, invite, or share?
Create a harmless test project and verify the view for an ordinary member, guest, former contractor, administrator, and public or link-only visitor where those roles exist. Check comments, attachments, search, notifications, dashboards, archived work, and API access. Remove broad groups and stale guests, and use narrower roles when the work permits.
Secure accounts and connected services
Require individual accounts and review active sessions, recovery contacts, app passwords, API tokens, service accounts, and single-sign-on configuration. CISA's MFA guidance explains that MFA adds another identity check and prevents a stolen password alone from satisfying login. Start with administrators, billing owners, automation accounts, and users who handle sensitive projects.
Each integration can read or write project data beyond the visible screen. Document its owner, scopes, destination, secret-storage method, and business purpose. Revoke unused tokens instead of merely disabling a dashboard tile. Rotate secrets after staff changes or suspected exposure, and avoid placing secrets in task fields or automation logs.
Review sharing, retention, and offboarding
Inspect external invitations, emailed exports, public boards, shared attachments, calendar feeds, and notification previews. A private project can still leak through an attachment link or a copied report. Use expiration dates where available and review external access on a schedule.
Test a complete export before depending on the platform. Verify task history, comments, files, labels, dates, relationships, and user attribution. Record which elements are omitted and whether a restore or migration has been tested. Set retention rules for completed projects and legal holds instead of keeping everything forever.
Build an offboarding checklist that transfers ownership, disables sessions, revokes tokens, reassigns automations, removes guests, preserves required records, and documents the final review. Perform it promptly when a person or vendor leaves.
Keep evidence of the review: workspace owners, role tests, guest list, public links, integration inventory, MFA coverage, export result, retention rule, and next review date. Repeat after a plan change, acquisition, major integration, security incident, or permission-model update.
Sources
- What are permission schemes in Jira? — Atlassian Support
- Turn On MFA — Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
- Privacy Framework — National Institute of Standards and Technology