What is data governance?

Data governance refers to the comprehensive management framework that defines how an organization handles data to ensure its quality, security, and availability.

Data governance includes a set of procedures, standards and policies that govern how data is gathered, processed, stored, and shared across the organization.

Why is data governance important

The main objectives of data governance are to ensure that data is available, accurate, consistent, and reliable, while also ensuring that the data, and by extension your organization or business, complies with relevant regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, or industry-specific standards.

It assigns specific roles and responsibilities, such as data stewards or data custodians, to ensure accountability for data management.

Data governance framework

A robust data governance framework addresses several key areas and includes multiple components such as:

• Data quality: Ensuring data is accurate, complete, and up to date.
• Data security: Protecting data from unauthorized access (internal or external), data breaches, and various malicious usage.
• Data privacy: Ensuring that personal or sensitive information is handled according to legal and ethical standards.
• Data Lifecycle Management: Defining how data is managed throughout its lifecycle. Lifecycle management encompasses the entire lifecycle of data – from creation to archival or deletion.
• Data accessibility: Ensuring that authorized users can access the data they need, while restricting access to sensitive data as necessary.

Effective data governance enhances decision-making, promotes transparency, reduces operational risks, and supports compliance with regulatory requirements, making it a critical component for modern data-driven organization