Data Governance
The framework for managing the quality, definitions, ownership, and use of an organization's data — focused on making data accurate and usable, and sitting alongside information governance.
Data governance is the framework of policies, roles, and standards for managing an organization’s data — typically the structured data in databases, warehouses, and applications. Its focus is data quality, definitions, ownership, lineage, and usability: making sure data is accurate, consistent, well-defined, and trustworthy for operations and analytics. It answers “what does this field mean, who owns it, and can we rely on it?”
Data governance is closely related to, but distinct from, information governance. Where data governance is largely about making data valuable and reliable, information governance is broader — covering all information (structured data and unstructured content like documents, email, and records) with a strong emphasis on risk, compliance, retention, privacy, and e-discovery. Records management sits within information governance; data governance sits alongside it. Mature organizations run both and increasingly converge them to govern everything they hold under one coherent approach.