By Rupali Patel Shah, Head of Legal Solutions, DiliTrust
Introduction: Data you don’t control still controls you
Over the years—particularly in large, complex organizations—I’ve watched leaders speak enthusiastically about leveraging data while quietly hoping no one asks the harder questions:
What data do we actually have? Where does it live? Who owns it? And why are we still keeping it?
That tension is not accidental.
Most leaders acknowledge that data is one of the most valuable assets a company possesses. Yet few are willing to step into the breach and take real ownership. Data rarely appears on the balance sheet, and as a result, it is not managed like something worth protecting. Instead, it is tolerated—accumulating quietly—until something goes wrong.
And when it does, the costs are no longer abstract: operational drag, regulatory exposure, litigation risk, reputational damage, and business decisions made with incomplete or unreliable information.
Every dataset introduces legal, financial, operational, and reputational risk. In an environment defined by persistent cyber threats, expanding regulation, and exponential data growth, the question is no longer whether data creates risk. The real question for in-house counsel and business leaders is whether that risk is being managed intentionally—or left to chance.
Recent regulatory actions make this painfully clear. When data practices come under scrutiny, organizations often discover too late that they cannot explain what data they hold, why they have it, or how it is governed. At that point, defensibility disappears.
Data’s power is inseparable from its risk.
The same information that enables personalization, analytics, and automation also creates exposure: breach risk, regulatory scrutiny, contractual obligations, discovery costs, and reputational fallout. In today’s operating environment, doing nothing is not a neutral choice. It is a risk decision.
Every organization makes tradeoffs between data value and data risk.
Information governance is the discipline that makes those tradeoffs explicit—and defensible.
Why cyber risk makes information governance business-critical
On any given day, headlines reinforce the same message: data risk is no longer theoretical. Security dashboards light up with millions of attack attempts in motion. When attackers succeed, the consequences extend far beyond IT.
Personal data is exploited. Identities are stolen. Trust erodes. And in the worst cases, ransomware brings core business operations to a halt.
Cyberattacks are more frequent, more sophisticated, and more targeted than ever. Artificial intelligence has only accelerated this reality—powering more adaptive attacks while simultaneously introducing new risk through the data organizations feed into AI systems themselves.
At the same time, poor data quality continues to undermine decision-making, inflate compliance costs, and create avoidable regulatory exposure. The cost of proving data ownership, lawful use, and retention justification keeps rising. For many organizations, the economics of unmanaged data are no longer sustainable.
This is where information governance becomes business-critical.
Done well, information governance is not about slowing the business down or adding bureaucratic friction. It is the foundation that allows organizations to extract value from data while managing the risks that inevitably follow. Security becomes stronger—not weaker—when it operates within a governed information environment.
In an evolving regulatory landscape defined by privacy laws, cross-border data restrictions, and AI oversight, perimeter security alone is no longer enough.
One of the hardest lessons organizations learn—often after an incident—is that the greatest risk in a breach is not simply that data was stolen.
It is not knowing what was lost.
Without visibility into what data exists, where it resides, who owns it, and who can access it, organizations struggle to:
- Accurately assess breach impact
- Meet notification obligations
- Respond credibly to regulators and customers
- Defend decisions in litigation or enforcement actions
Cybersecurity can protect what you know you have.
It cannot protect what you don’t understand.
This gap—between technical security controls and data awareness—is where information governance proves its value.
Information governance as the operating model
At its core, information governance provides the structure, accountability, and discipline required to manage data across its entire lifecycle. It shifts organizations from reactive defense to intentional stewardship.
Information governance is not a single policy, program, or tool. It is a business operating model—one that aligns legal, privacy, security, IT, and the business around shared responsibility for information assets.
When governance is absent, security teams are left trying to defend an environment they cannot fully see. When governance is strong, security becomes targeted, efficient, and materially more effective.
The three-legged stool of information governance
Effective information governance rests on three interdependent pillars: Privacy & Permissibility, Security, and Data Quality. Remove one, and the structure collapses.
Privacy & Permissibility
This pillar defines the organization’s right to collect, use, retain, and share data—grounded in regulation, contracts, and ethical expectations. It answers:
- Should we have this data?
- What are we allowed to do with it?
Security
Security protects data from unauthorized access, misuse, or loss through technical, administrative, and physical safeguards. It answers:
- How is data protected throughout its lifecycle?
- Who can access it, and under what conditions?
Data Quality
Data quality ensures information is accurate, complete, current, and trustworthy. Poor-quality data amplifies regulatory, operational, and strategic risk. It answers:
- Can we rely on this data to make decisions or defend our actions?
Information governance works only when all three operate together. Security is essential—but without governance, it is operating in the dark.
The real goal: Risk-driven data stewardship
Information governance is not about control for control’s sake. It is about protecting valuable information while reducing unnecessary risk.
In practice, that means focusing on a few foundational behaviors:
- Data minimization: Collect and retain only what is needed, for as long as it is needed. This single principle reduces breach impact, regulatory exposure, and storage costs—often dramatically.
- Organized retention and defensible disposition: Retain data intentionally and dispose of it confidently. Eliminating “toxic data” reduces risk without sacrificing value.
- Clear internal data handling processes: Define ownership, accountability, and workflows so data practices are consistent and repeatable—not dependent on tribal knowledge or heroics.
These practices may feel tedious. They require policy review, stakeholder alignment, and disciplined execution. But without them, no security program—no matter how sophisticated—can fully protect the organization.
Why information governance is foundational to the business
When information governance is embedded into daily operations, the benefits extend far beyond compliance:
- Innovation accelerates because teams know what data can be used—and how
- Risk decreases as unknowns are eliminated
- Security becomes more precise and effective
- Trust increases with regulators, customers, partners, and employees
Most importantly, data shifts from an unmanaged liability to a governed, defensible asset.
Conclusion: Know thy data
Cyber threats are accelerating. Regulations are tightening. And data continues to multiply across clouds, applications, devices, and third parties. In that environment, the most dangerous posture is not noncompliance.
It is not knowing what you have.
Information governance closes the gap between data’s value and its risk. When done well, it becomes momentum: faster decisions, cleaner audits, lower incident impact, and data that can be used—not feared.
The future belongs to organizations that treat information like the asset it is: with disciplined processes, fit-for-purpose tools, and trusted partners where it matters. Not to check a box—but to build a defensible, resilient foundation for growth.
That is not a compliance aspiration.
It is a business imperative.
