Getting Rid of Data: Why it's So Hard

http://ow.ly/7r5vT

An article by Harry Pugh on the information-management.com website.

This article discusses some of the risks and costs associated with deleting data, and explains the difficulties corporations face when they are deciding to delete data.

The author states that many corporations seeks inexpensive storage solutions so they can simply save all their data.  The author warns against this practice, "Unfortunately, storing and managing data stores that only get bigger with time is very expensive, and instead of reducing risk, it dramatically increases costs and risks associated with e-discovery."

The article further states, "...while some data must be retained for its business, legal or compliance value, retaining data that has no such value increases the complexity and cost of every hold issued by the legal department in response to an e-discovery request."

The author provides discussion regarding "Information Governance" and provide Gartner's definition of this term. In addition, the author states, "Modernizing and unifying data governance processes based on information as digital data managed by IT, not RIM, is essential to reducing IT costs, improving regulatory compliance and ensuring a proper e-discovery process."

The article also discusses a recent survey, "A study commissioned by the Compliance, Governance, and Oversight Council, in concert with Electronic Discovery Reference Model and the new Information Management Reference Model project, set out to assess the gap and how companies are addressing the problem."

The article provides a number of interesting statistics from the survey:

• Only 22 percent of responding companies are able to dispose of data today.
• Although most of today's data is electronic, 70 percent of respondents claimed their retention schedules were not actionable by IT or could be used only in disposition of physical records.
• A majority of IT respondents reported that they managed data volume by simply applying flat data quotas instead of strategically assigning business, legal or regulatory value to the data.
• Seventy percent of companies use "people glue" to connect legal duties and business value to information assets.
• Ninety-eight percent of respondents believe defensible disposal of unnecessary data is a key outcome of an information governance program.
• Eighty-five percent reported that the most critical success factor to information governance is more consistent collaboration and systematic linkage among IT, legal and records.
•  When asked if RIM staff are involved in establishing, enabling or monitoring routine disposal of information, 60 percent of RIM respondents said yes, while 60 percent of IT respondents (typically from the same company) said no.
• Fifty-seven percent of companies have governance committees in place, but just 25 percent believe the right stakeholders are at the table.
• While data disposal was an objective for 98 percent of respondents, IT efficiency was a factor in executive sponsorship for just 12 percent of companies

The article provides some advice on how to address some of the challenges associated with the topic of Information Governance.  In addition, the author states, "While information governance requires a huge cross-functional effort, IT must realize that it will benefit most from the effort, not only by dramatically reducing costs, but also by developing the ability and agility to determine in real time how to more precisely and efficiently manage data for the enterprise.

For more information on information governance, check out the CGOC at www.cgoc.com and the Information Management Reference Model (IMRM) at www.edrm.net."

Links to the CGOC and EDRM site are provided in the article.

P.S.  Need assistance with these issues?  Feel free to contact SRM Legal to discuss some possible solutions.