Data governance

Data governance ensures that everyone in the organisation uses the same data in the same way, and that it is clear who is accountable when something is wrong. It is one of the building blocks of a data foundation for AI, alongside integrations, data quality and access.

For a mid-sized organisation it does not have to be a committee or a thick policy document. A few clear agreements are often enough: an owner per domain such as customers, finance and projects, fixed definitions (what is an active customer?), access rights and retention periods in line with the GDPR. At Snelder Zijlstra, for example, staff can view tenant data without being able to download it, and it is deleted automatically after the retention period.

Data governance is not the same as AI governance. Data governance is about the data, AI governance about the applications that run on it. Once AI is involved they do meet: you also record which data an AI application may use.