Extract from Natasha Doucas’ article “Unstructured Data: The Elephant in the Room”
Managing exponentially increasing volumes of data is fast becoming a great concern for corporations. It is not only the cost of storing this data, but—more importantly—the ability to properly secure or manage this data, understand the content and access to the data, and mitigate any associated risks.
These risks amplify the impact of data breaches, where accessing stores of data that are large, unmanaged, and containing potentially sensitive content could damage an organization. They also impact the course of business, in the case of requests for data in response to events such as litigation, access to information requests, or General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) related subject access requests. When these unplanned activities are coupled with large data shares, they can end up having a negative impact both on an organization’s financial results, and reputation.
How can corporations take greater control of the situation? Well, it is not as simple as deleting hordes of data. Let’s examine the three systemic issues that shed light on the challenges and considerations for remediation.
