I have come to realize that there is a lot of confusion between data governance and information governance. This has become more noticeable as I am helping organizations set up an information governance product discipline for managing information compliance in Microsoft 365 and other content services platforms.

Hence I decided to ask the experts in this short video and get their take on the definition, boundaries, and dependencies between the two disciplines.

I am hoping this will open up a healthy discussion as every organization has almost two parallel initiatives going on to govern data and information.

Conclusion

My summary of definition of the two are:

Data Governance: A framework for accountability for the management of data and related resources, including data ownership, quality, architecture, tooling, access, and security.

Information Governance: A framework for accountability to ensure appropriate behavior and regulatory compliance in the creation, storage, use, sharing, protection, archiving, and deletion of information.

If Data governance brings structure to unstructured data, information governance brings context and relevance.

Check out the new Office 365 Compliance features that will help you govern information and beyond Office 365.