You should, at your organization, have documented data-related policies on protection of organization data, data retention, data sharing agreements, data backups, data access, handing of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) such as a social security number, and who can change certain data. And you can probably think of a few more items to document. Data-related policies should be stored in an accessible, central knowledge base and known to the staff. And to enforce these data policies you need to have data policy attributes in place. This blog post will cover some tips for policy implementation, action, and enforcement.
Here are some tips regarding data-related policies and data policy attributes:
- Enforce data policies at the point of request. A central data request system can trigger data policy actions such as when someone wants a report that contains PII. You can enforce policies either through automated workflow routing or through manual oversight review.
- Create reports to pull content for policy attributes by date. For example, pulling all data elements in a data system that are marked as containing PII so that you can encrypt the data and restrict database access. Run reports based on dates to show what is new that needs action. Do not forget to track “remove date”.
- Document your data-related policies and have them stored in a central accessible location. Train employees on these policies.
- Document your data policy attributes and implementation actions on data policies. Have a plan.
- Start with glossary terms for maximum return and flexibility.
- Assign critical data model objects if possible.
- Besides a glossary, you need a data catalog and data processing catalog to assign policy attributes.
- Have a data governance solution in place. Solutions like the Data Cookbook give you a complete framework. You can start with spreadsheets documenting only the items with attributes but will need a data governance solution eventually.
Feel free to check out our “Adding Data-Related Policies to Your Data Governance Content” blog post. Or all of our data governance and data intelligence resources (recorded webinars, blog posts and videos) at www.datacookbook.com/dg. If you would like additional resources regarding data policies check out our resources blog post.
This blog mentions the importance of having data-related policies and policy attributes in place so that the policies can be enforced. We provided some tips to help you. Hope you found this blog post beneficial.
IData has a solution, the Data Cookbook, that can aid the employees and the organization in its data governance, data intelligence, data stewardship and data quality initiatives. IData also has experts that can assist with data governance, reporting, integration and other technology services on an as needed basis. Feel free to contact us and let us know how we can assist.
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