GDPR to the rescue of information governance

By Marc Ansoult

The popularity of the word governance has had its ups and downs. It seems that until recently the word had a fairly good press, generally associated with progress in human organisations. With the scandals of the past year, it has become the slogan of the vigilantes. And with several simultaneous scandals, the word was so widely used that it ended up being worn out and nothing positive was associated with it. ‘Governance’ is now akin to a tedious process that reduces the number of mandates of boards and committees. If you try to promote information governance these days, the mere mention of the word in a sentence inevitably stresses out the person you are talking to.

The good news, however, is that there are plenty of free mandates in information governance. In fact, I advocate appointing people to be responsible for each organisation’s key information assets. The primary mission of these managers is to ensure that the organisation’s important information is secure, accessible, shared and, above all, of high quality. Too many organisations are still faced with problems caused by missing and/or incorrect information, and are having difficulty resolving them because no one has been appointed to be responsible for the information.

With the GDPR, the DPO is the first information officer to become mandatory in a large number of organisations.

This is a major step forward, because we need to protect personal data and control the processes that use it. But it goes further than personal data, of course.

Finally, governance is going to be introduced via the regulations on the protection of private data, without us even having to deliberate about it. As a promoter of information governance, I’m delighted about this, and with my colleagues and partners we wish long life to the DPOs.