How can you update your data governance policies to prevent breaches?

2 Define your goals and metrics

The next step to update your data governance policies is to define your goals and metrics for data breach prevention and response. Your goals should be in line with your business objectives, reflecting your data governance vision and principles. Additionally, your metrics must be measurable, relevant, and actionable to help you observe and enhance your data governance performance. Possible goals and metrics include reducing the number of data breaches by a certain percentage in a specific period of time, achieving a certain level of compliance with data protection regulations and standards, increasing staff awareness and training of data governance roles and responsibilities, as well as decreasing the time and cost of data breach detection and remediation.

3 Update your policies and procedures

The third step to update your data governance policies is to update your policies and procedures based on your assessment and goals. You should revise your policies and procedures to address any gaps, weaknesses, or inconsistencies that you identified in the first step, and to incorporate any best practices, guidelines, or recommendations that you found in the second step. You should also document your policies and procedures clearly and communicate them to all relevant stakeholders, such as data owners, data stewards, data users, and data consumers.

4 Implement and enforce your policies

The fourth step to update your data governance policies is to implement and enforce your policies across your organization. You should assign roles and responsibilities for data governance, such as data protection officers, data stewards, data custodians, and data auditors. You should also provide training and education for your staff on data governance policies and procedures, and how to prevent and respond to data breaches. You should also use tools and technologies, such as data quality tools, data security tools, data catalog tools, and data lineage tools, to support and automate your data governance processes.

5 Monitor and review your policies

The fifth step to update your data governance policies is to monitor and review your policies regularly and adjust them as needed. You should use the metrics that you defined in the second step to measure your data governance performance and identify any issues or opportunities for improvement. You should also collect feedback from your stakeholders and conduct audits and assessments to verify your data governance compliance and effectiveness. You should also keep up to date with the latest trends and developments in data governance and data protection, and incorporate any changes or updates into your policies.

6 Respond to data breaches

The sixth step to update your data governance policies is to respond to data breaches promptly and effectively. You should have a data breach response plan that outlines the roles and responsibilities, procedures, and actions to take in the event of a data breach. You should also have a data breach notification policy that specifies the criteria, methods, and timelines for notifying the affected parties, such as customers, regulators, partners, and media. You should also have a data breach recovery policy that describes the steps and resources to restore your data and systems, and to prevent future breaches.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?