You Need a Strong Data Protection for an Effective Data Governance
Data governance and data protection have never been the same thing, and the line between the two disciplines used to be very clear. But for organizational goals, they now work together and complement each other.
Digital transformation is redefining the relationship between business processes and data. While performing business processes, data is created, its purposes for each business process. As you know, all transactions in the digital environment leave some traces. The insights provided by these traces also offer new ideas for increasing the added value provided by business processes to stakeholders.
“The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.” The Economist
Data is of great importance for organizations that seek to create value for their stakeholders, develop “more beneficial” relationships with them, and gain a competitive advantage. And these organizations are trying to develop comprehensive data governance structures that include people, processes, and technology to gain the ability to process data at high quality throughout its lifecycle. Good data governance is the critical basis of competitive differentiation called digital transformation that can use big data and advanced data analytics.
Data governance is an issue that affects all processes in an organization.
The volume of corporate data created, processed, and stored grows exponentially. While this allows organizations to develop and transform themselves using this data, storage and security requirements increase costs and create risks that must be carefully managed. As the use of and dependence on digital technologies increases, the opposition of digital comfort, cyber threats, and the stress they cause is becoming more noticeable in all organizations, large and small.
The fact that digital technologies, which are expected to make our lives easier, bring cyber threats that can upset all our plans reminds me of an approach in Chinese philosophy: Yin-Yang.
The yin-yang philosophy says that the universe is composed of competing and complementary forces of dark and light, sun and moon, male and female.
This thought explains the working mechanisms of the universe and nature through the relation of opposition; Everything in the universe has two inseparable opposite poles: day and night, energy and matter, light and shadow, etc. Opposite characters are in a constant dynamic.
That’s why yin-yang, and movement come together. However, transformation can take place in harmony or discord. As the poles produce and support each other, on the contrary, they can create an interaction that consumes and restricts each other.
Thanks to digitalization, the popularity of data-driven business approaches is increasing, but also people are worried and cautious about their data. Today, we can say that personal data protection is at the center of cybersecurity. Now all customers care about data privacy news and its implications. While sensitivity about data privacy is increasing, legal regulations are being made to satisfy this sensitivity.
To comply with these legal regulations with high sanctioning power (even if we leave aside the reputation concerns); knowing (literally) what data you have and where you keep it; tracking how you use it and with whom you share it; You must have active processes to obtain the necessary permissions, access and delete this data.
“Just take a look at the Cambridge Analytica Scandal to explain the importance of data privacy in data governance.”
Now, imagine that the necessary policies and standards regarding data governance are implemented in your organization, the relevant roles and responsibilities for data governance are defined throughout the organization, the required authorities are assigned, and the data flow can be fully monitored. In such a structure, it is clear that GDPR compliance programs will be less troublesome and even thriving. A data governance structure with a high level of maturity will make a sustainable contribution to the data protection efforts of organizations.
From another perspective, we can say that GDPR compliance studies have introduced many organizations to data governance. GDPR requirements; Identifying the personal data being processed by examining archive rooms, databases, and applications, creating a data inventory afterward, establishing mechanisms to keep the inventory up-to-date, determining which data will be shared with whom and how, classification of data according to criticality levels, governance of all steps within the framework of specific KPIs throughout the organization. Establishment of the structure that will provide…
We see that all these encourage the cultural change, structures, roles, and mechanisms required for data governance to some extent within the framework of GDPR compliance. Of course, no organization has come to life to protect data. To maintain a competitive advantage in changing market conditions, they will need to do more within the framework of organizational goals and sectoral realities.
Data Privacy Through Data Governance
Data protection is part of data governance, and the two functions meet a common goal; to protect organizational data. Let’s give a simple example; data governance supports the top priority data protection goal of “the right people have access to relevant data”.
Data protection concerns need to be considered in every step taken for data governance. Security by Design / Privacy by Design approaches, which started to be accepted globally with the GDPR, emphasize that security needs should be considered in every step of product and service delivery from the planning stage, rather than adding them to processes, services, and products later on. You can access the article on Privacy by Design from the link below.
Conclusion:
Time is running fast. However, it is not too late to design and implement an effective data governance program. Considering the increasing threat environment with customer expectations for innovative products and services, legal regulations regarding data privacy, accelerating digitization, and expanding organizational boundaries, data governance is now an essential necessity for organizations that need quality data, are protected from cyber threats, and comply with the law. So how can we apply the data protection perspective within the framework of the data governance program? We will discuss this issue in the following article.