The ACEDS DC Chapter, in conjunction with the DC BAR and Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, hosted the first in a series of Fall events last night. The Fall educational series highlights topics identified in a recent poll of the ACEDS DC membership to identify current topics important to the community. Last night’s event was an excellent panel discussion on Information Governance which was at the top of the list for local professionals. It was a great discussion featuring four leaders of the DC legal landscape, including ACEDS DC Chapter President Monica Harris.
While Information Governance is a very broad topic, Ms. Harris did a great job of moderating and keeping the discussion moving and focused. The speakers fielded questions from Ms. Harris, the crowd, and each other and kept the audience engaged through the entire discussion, ultimately having to be cut short by the moderator due to time.
Speakers covered topics such as Info Gov education and certification, valuable resources and advice on how to improve one’s own knowledge of Info Gov topics. They covered regulation and focused heavily on cyber security and privacy including spelling out the differences between GDPR and CCPA. The speakers offered valuable insights for folks working directly in Info Gov/Cyber/Privacy but also for folks helping clients establish their own Info Gov programs.
While the entire discussion was engaging and informative, I found the speakers’ unique and complimentary definitions of Information Governance to be the key takeaways of this discussion and great starting points for anyone to have further discussions on the topic, regardless of role or experience level.
Monica Harris
President, ACEDS DC Chapter
Question—How do you define Information Governance?
Veronica Nelson
Associate, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Knowledge, power and accuracy. Knowledge of where my data is. Power that comes from leveraging my data to achieve business goals. Accuracy is important to mitigate risk, safeguard privacy and comply with regulations.
Yodi Hailemariam
Senior Associate, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP
Information Governance is the custom-tailored who, what, when, where and how an organization gets, keeps, creates, manages and ultimately disposes of information.
Hala Furst
Director, Cybersecurity and Innovation, US Department of Homeland Security, Private Sector Office
When I think of Information Governance, I think of reputation. How do we protect a business and its systems from risk and harm? How do we protect the reputation of a business from breach, disaster, litigation and loss of revenue?
