It’s been awhile since I posted a new blog. Things have been quite busy for me – traveling around the globe to talk with customers and partners about the information governance imperative. It’s a very exciting time @ RSD. There are two incidents that occurred this week regarding information governance.

Social Security Statements Goes Electronic

Not only am I the vendor, I am also a user. I have been using electronic bill presentment and payment for years – saving postage and print costs while making my life much easier. This week, the Social Security Administration made a big announcement indicating they were going to stop printing and mailing annual statements. It's an ongoing effort to reduce costs and drive more people to their website. Information governance challenges/concerns:

• Retention/disposition – Without mailing the annual statements out, the preservation duty has shifted to the agency. These are the statements that show how much we get when we retire @ 62, 66, and 70. How long is the agency planning to keep these statements around? The Associated Press estimate about 150 million statements are mailed out each year. Agency needs an information governance program to ensure proper retention/disposition is being applied across these 150 million annual statements.
• Security, security, security – Information governance is ensuring 360 degree protection. I am confident with the right controls, processes, and technologies, the agency will be able to securely deliver the statements over the Web.
• Accessibility – Not sure how many people in the senior community have access to a computer or an iPad. Information governance ensures the right people get the right information in the right format. I am sure there are plenty of advocates handing this issue.

Popular E-mail Service Gets Hacked

In the last 7 days, I received six separate e-mails from credit card companies and vendors I have done business with alerting me there was a data breach which may have exposed my e-mail address to unauthorized third parties. It appears a company called Epsilon had a massive data breach as a result of a phishing attack. It’s good to know this incident did not involve other account or personally identifiable information.

There are tons of statistics from the Ponemon Institute on the costs of data breaches. An information governance program includes the business processes and information lifecycle practices which include more than just retention and disposition. It incorporates data privacy rules and attributes.

Let the spam begin!

{photo courtesy of Flickr ToastyKen}