Data Governance in the age of unstructured data: A strategic imperative for risk and compliance leaders

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In today’s digital era, data is both a valuable asset and a significant liability. The explosion of unstructured data—documents, images, videos, and communications—has only intensified the challenges faced by risk and compliance leaders.

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Goli Narasimha
January 14, 20257 mins
Data Governance in the age of unstructured data: A strategic imperative for risk and compliance leaders

In today’s digital era, data is both a valuable asset and a significant liability. The explosion of unstructured data—documents, images, videos, and communications—has only intensified the challenges faced by risk and compliance leaders. As organizations work to navigate increasingly complex regulatory landscapes, they also struggle with managing and protecting the sheer volume of information generated each day.

For Chief Risk and Chief Compliance Officers, the stakes are higher than ever. Traditional data management systems, designed primarily for structured data, often fail to deliver the oversight and control required for unstructured data. And as data governance becomes a central component of operational integrity, the need for a robust strategy to manage unstructured data has transformed from a “nice-to-have” to a business-critical priority.

Unstructured Data: An unseen liability?

According to Gartner, unstructured data accounts for roughly 80-90% of all new data generated globally. This data often exists in silos—spread across email systems, shared drives, collaboration platforms, and cloud storage. While some of this information is highly valuable, much of it is redundant, obsolete, or trivial (ROT). This includes duplicate documents, outdated records, and files with minimal business relevance, all of which can introduce substantial risk if left unchecked.

The Hidden risks of unstructured data:

  1. Data privacy and security risks: Unstructured data often includes sensitive information, like Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or confidential intellectual property. Improper management of this data increases the risk of data breaches, potentially leading to regulatory fines and reputational damage.
  2. Compliance violations and regulatory risks: Many organizations keep unstructured data longer than necessary, violating retention and disposal policies. In regulated industries, non-compliance with data retention guidelines can lead to significant fines and legal consequences.
  3. Financial and operational costs: Storing unstructured data indefinitely can inflate storage and operational costs, especially when organizations store ROT data alongside critical files. This not only burdens IT infrastructures but also complicates data retrieval, reducing efficiency and inflating storage costs without delivering business value.
  4. Data visibility and oversight challenges: Effective compliance management requires visibility into the entire data ecosystem. Unstructured data is difficult to track, classify, and manage, and without automated data visibility, compliance leaders lack the insight needed to effectively apply data governance policies.

Building a strategic information governance framework

The question then becomes: how can organizations transform their unstructured data from an ungoverned liability into a well-managed asset? The answer lies in a strategic information governance framework that encompasses the following core components:

1. Comprehensive data discovery and classification

Effective information governance starts with understanding what data exists, its location, and its relevance. Automated data discovery and classification tools allow organizations to scan data across systems, classifying files by content, age, and location. This classification gives risk and compliance leaders visibility into sensitive data, enabling prioritized governance and compliance efforts.

2. Automated data retention and disposal policies

Once classified, data should be managed by automated retention and disposal policies aligned with regulations. Policy-driven data management enables organizations to retain only the data necessary, disposing of ROT data to optimize storage and mitigate risk. Automation minimizes manual oversight and allows compliance officers to focus on strategic tasks.

3. Data security and access control

Data security, especially for unstructured data with sensitive information, is crucial for information governance strategy. Encryption and access control restrict data access to authorized personnel, preventing unauthorized access and breaches. These security controls are vital for Chief Risk Officers in mitigating cyber risks, especially given increasing regulatory scrutiny.

4. Integrated redaction and data masking

Data redaction and masking are crucial for restricting access to sensitive information. Automated redaction allows organizations to mask sensitive details like social security numbers before sharing or storage, protecting data privacy and compliance even when operational access is needed, without losing data utility.

5. Auditability and reporting for compliance

A complete information governance solution requires end-to-end auditability and reporting to track all data management activities (classification, retention, redaction, disposal). This supports internal oversight and provides compliance officers with necessary documentation for audits. Robust reporting offers insights for tracking progress and identifying improvements. For Chief Compliance Officers, transparent, real-time reporting is crucial for maintaining an audit-ready state and reducing regulatory risk.

6. Intelligent data tiering and cost optimization

With growing unstructured data volumes, efficient storage management is essential. Intelligent data tiering categorizes data by relevance, moving less-used files to cheaper storage while keeping important files in easily accessible storage. This optimizes performance, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness by reducing storage expenses.

Addressing industry-specific needs

For compliance-focused organizations, a one-size-fits-all approach to information governance is often inadequate. Many industries have specific regulatory requirements that dictate data handling practices. For example:

  • Healthcare organizations must comply with stringent Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations, ensuring patient records are stored securely and only accessed by authorized personnel.
  • Financial services face data retention requirements from regulators such as the Security and ExchangeCommission (SEC), which mandates strict protocols for storing and managing transaction records and customer data.

Information governance strategies tailored to meet these sector-specific requirements help compliance leaders ensure their data management practices are not only effective but also compliant with industry standards.

Strategic benefits of a strong information governance solution

For Chief Risk and Chief Compliance Officers, the benefits of implementing a strong information governance solution are substantial:

  • Enhanced compliance: By applying consistent governance policies, organizations reduce the risk of regulatory violations, making it easier to maintain compliance in an evolving regulatory landscape.
  • Reduced risk: Data visibility, classification, and access control measures minimize the chances of unauthorized data exposure, helping mitigate the impact of potential breaches.
  • Cost efficiency: A tiered approach to storage, coupled with ROT analysis, ensures that only valuable data is retained, reducing unnecessary storage costs.
  • Operational efficiency: Automated governance policies reduce the manual oversight required for data compliance, enabling risk and compliance officers to focus on high-value activities.

Bringing it all together with Iron Mountain’s integrated platform

For organizations seeking to tackle unstructured data management with a comprehensive and efficient approach, Iron Mountain offers a solution tailored to meet today’s information governance challenges. Iron Mountain’s InSight® Digital Experience Platform (DXP), combined with Policy Center and Iron Cloud, Iron Mountain’s proprietary solutions for data retention policy automation and secure cloud storage, delivers a unified information governance solution that addresses each of the elements discussed. With capabilities for automated data discovery, classification, redaction, encryption, and compliance reporting, Iron Mountain’s InSight DXP platform simplifies the complexities of managing unstructured data. Whether a business requires secure storage, industry-specific compliance configurations, or intelligent tiering, Iron Mountain’s platform enables organizations to streamline information governance and turn data from a risk into a strategic asset.