Focus Areas for Data Governance: Privacy, Compliance, Security

Focus Areas

This type of program typically comes into existence because of concerns about Data Information Security controls, or compliance. Compliance, in this context, may refer to regulatory compliance, contractual compliance, or compliance with internal requirements.

Focus Areas for Data Governance: Privacy, Compliance, Security

This focus is often seen combined with a focus on policy enforcement. It’s also seen combined with a focus on Data Quality.

The program almost always results from a senior management mandate. It may be formally sponsored by Business or IT, or it may be an outgrowth of a Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) program.

These programs generally begin with an enterprise scope, but often efforts are limited to specific types of data. They almost always include technologies to locate sensitive data, to protect data, and/or to manage policies or controls.

 

A charter for this type of program may hold Data Governance and Stewardship participants accountable to:

  • Help locate sensitive data across systems
  • Align governance, compliance, security, and technology frameworks and initiatives
  • Help assess risk and define data-related controls to manage risk
  • Help enforce regulatory, contractual, architectural compliance requirements
  • Support Access Management and Security requirements
  • Identify stakeholders, establish decision rights, clarify accountabilities

Read Next:

Governance and Alignment

Data Governance is a balancing act. On the one hand, you need to exert control over how groups create data, manage data, and use data. On the other hand, you need to promote appropriate levels of flexibility. You need to ensure that data-related efforts support the...
Read More

Funding Models: Funding Data Governance

The DGI Data Governance Framework addresses funding two ways: Obtaining funding and support is a phase in the Data Governance Life Cycle Funding is part of one of the components of the framework. What type of funding is needed? Data Governance programs need to...
Read More

Demonstrating Value

Everything an organization does should tie to one of three universal value drivers. Data Governance efforts MUST tie back to one or more of these drivers. And YOU must communicate how it does.

Read More

Setting Governance Roles and Responsibilities

Who does what in a Data Governance program? First, a group of individuals (or a hierarchy of groups) representing a cross-section of stakeholder groups makes a set of rules in the form of policies, standards, requirements, guidelines, or data definitions. (Or, they...
Read More

Establishing a Data Governance Office

Most organizations that begin a formal Data Governance and Stewardship effort need a support team to facilitate and coordinate activities of councils, stewards, and stakeholders. This support team may be individual contributors who have been doing this work informally...
Read More

Focus Areas for Data Governance: Architecture, Integration

This type of program typically comes into existence in conjunction with a major system acquisition, development effort, or update that requires new levels of cross-functional decision-making and accountabilities.What other types of groups and initiatives might want...
Read More

Defining Organizational Structures

There is no single “right” way to organize Data Governance and Stewardship. Some organizations have distinct Data Governance programs. Others embed Data Governance activities into Data Quality or Master Data Management programs.

Read More

Data Governance Program Phases

As you perform the activities needed to gain support and funding, remember that your program may plan to address multiple focus areas. Each new effort should be introduced using the seven steps of the life cycle. Even specific governance-led projects, such as creating a set of data standards, will want to follow the Data Governance Life Cycle steps.

Read More

Defining Data Governance

How you define your program will influence your ability to manage it — to keep all participants on focus, in sync, and striving toward the same goals.

Read More

Governance Communications

At a Data Governance Conference in Orlando, Florida (USA), a group of managers of successful Data Governance programs reached a startling consensus: They agreed that Data Governance is actually somewhere between 80 and 95% communications!How can this be? They said...
Read More