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Compliance: Focus on Data Cleansing and Records Management
In 2010 many companies will be reviewing their data protection policies for data cleansing and record keeping. Companies have focused in previous years primarily on making their data secure, but once good security processes are in place, many will now begin to focus their attention to the quality of the data that they store.
“As the cost of storage has plummeted, people are keeping more and more data. This increases the risk of it being out of date, inaccurate, or no longer relevant. That is going to cause problems for those who are putting data cleansing to one side,” said Richard Thomas, strategy adviser for the Center for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL) at law firm Hunton & Williams, and reported in the security-focused SC Magazine.
Thomas argued that once companies move most of their documents to digital format that it is too easy to forget that out-dated and irrelevant documents should be purged. Records Management brings with it a discipline around document retention that companies need. Companies should put policies in place around how long to keep customer, supplier, and staff data. But key to creating retention policies are understanding regulations and legal implications. One way to start the process is to create a retention period matrix for each of the types of document that the company keeps.
Thomas advises “Don’t collect it without thinking, don’t keep it without thinking and make sure you manage your data actively.”
