Why is an effective data governance program critical for ensuring data security? Data governance encompasses the people, processes and technology required to ensure the integrity, security, and availability of data. The overall objective of an effective data governance program is to ensure that data is consistent, trustworthy, and used appropriately by defining who in your agency can:
- take what actions,
- upon what data,
- in what situations; and
- using what methods.
Poor data governance can result in data inconsistencies within individual agency programs as well as across the agency from an enterprise perspective. Ineffective data governance can also hinder an agency’s ability to comply with data privacy and protection laws such as HIPAA and FERPA.
How Can OnData Assist with Data Governance and Data Security?
Traditional approaches to data governance have historically relied heavily on tedious and time-consuming manual processes, as well as designated individuals (with tribal knowledge) to ensure that data governance standards are appropriately enforced. While there are some technology products on the market that can assist with a portion of the data governance solution (such as a data catalog), those options still require the agency to undertake cumbersome manual processes in order to identify, categorize, and secure the data assets. And unfortunately, changes in personnel can result in a loss of discipline around the data governance function, creating even more challenging issues with the consistency and security of the data in the future.
OnData has built its years of experience in Data Governance into a cross-database product platform which helps organizations by automating and streamlining the manual processes previously required to inventory and classify their data, designate data ownership, establish rules for data access, and manage all data attributes over time. OnData’s Data Governance module can help you every step of the way to simplify your data management practices as follows:
- Identify Critical Data in Databases – OnData automatically captures all the critical elements stored in your databases and allows users to view the database schemas and how they change over time.
- Classify and Categorize Data – OnData allows organizations to classify and categorize data based on sensitivity levels so that appropriate encryption rules and data access policies can be applied.
- Identify Data Owners – OnData allows to set data owners for areas of data who will have responsibility for making sure that data is managed effectively with alerts and data access policies.
- Secure Your Data – OnData offers encryption rules that can encrypt your data in a way that works with your applications. Only users with a need-to-know can access the actual data.
Data governance is a combination of people, processes, and technology. OnData provides an integrated platform that allows you to automate data governance best practices cost-effectively, and helps your agency succeed at keeping data consistent, trustworthy, secure, and used appropriately.