Information Governance Fundamentals

by Isabella Janovick, Marketing  Manager, Anacomp, Inc.

Information Governance are the “activities and technologies that organizations employ to maximize the value of their information while minimizing associated risks and tasks. This includes the use of automated policies to classify content and to keep control of the information by managing access and migrating good, useful content to retain for in an archive.  ” Or, in other words, “Getting Your House in Order.”

The need for InfoGov is becoming more of a necessity as digital data is growing and moving beyond the enterprise and business value and risk is often unknown and unmanaged. Sharing information with partners and suppliers has now become routine, along with social networking and mobile access. These factors are causing a risk of security breach and aiding to the growth of data loss.

Benefits of Information Governance
Information Governance is a subset of corporate governance. It has three main focuses for solutions, which are to manage risk, reduce costs and to maximize the business benefit. InfoGov should be flexible enough to provide proper control without limiting corporate responsiveness, is strategic verses tactical, and includes information lifecycle governance.

Managing Email Records
Email is the most common business application. 80% of all employees send business emails to and from their personal, unsecure accounts. Email policies need to be updated within each business structure, enforced, and audited on a regular basis. These policies should be realistic and may need additional technologies to automate and control. Retention of email and other e-records is ultimately a legal issue. 

Social Media
Social media is considered a record if it contains evidence of an agency’s policies, business, mission, etc. It is viral, network-based and ever changing. The file sharing and storage is not secure and poses risks to the business records and the content is usually not managed well. However, having a social media presence is important for marketing, attracting not only new clients, but employees as well. It creates a competitive position and calculates a new type of ROI with social selling techniques and campaigns.
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Mobile Devices
By 2016, 40% of the workplace will be mobile and 2/3 will be using smartphones. Viruses are getting harder to detect and remove, fraud is more common and users are unaware that they are being monitored. Awareness and education is the key against cybercriminals. Mobile Device Management (MDM) encourages the importance of removing confidential information off of mobile devices and to encrypt sensitive data.

Information Governance Initiative
The Information Governance Initiative (IGI) is an organization dedicated to the adoption of IG best practices, technologies, research and networking. The IGI website contains free information on benchmarking surveys, studies, publications and guidance for records managers and other practitioners, on compliance, security and eDiscovery. IGI includes an advisory board and leadership team consisting of senior professionals and industry experts with a cross-disciplinary focus on IG. To learn more about IGI, please visit their website at http://iginitiative.com/
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