Archives For #DataGovernance

Personal Privacy, Internet Commerce & National Security – Can they Co-exist?

October 29, 2015 — Leave a comment

Preface:

privacy |ˈprīvəsē| noun “the state or condition of being free from public attention, being observed or disturbed by other people”:

Authors Note:

Members of the Judiciary in the US are now stating without equivocation that “Privacy is only for those with something to hide”. I would doubt that anyone outside their circle of influence agrees with them.

Body:

Privacy is a basic Human Right in the EU and many other geographies and a long established Civil Liberty in the US.  These protections have been in place for many decades and yet never in its history has the notion of Privacy been under a non-stop attack from two opposing and powerful forces simultaneously; that of numerous Internet-based Commercial entities (including illegal ones via Data Breaches) and various Governments’ around the world (for national security and often immoral purposes). All believe with strong conviction that they have legitimate needs (and alleged legal rights) to freely access and use Individuals most personal data (PII) for the purposes of either Commerce or National Security. No matter where you stand on these arguments there is much to be said & argued and it has become “a pundits dream” in terms of opportunities to proffer and pontificate on the subject. All seem to be making to argument to extend their already egregious activities even further. This has created deep polarization by all parties involved with no resolution in sight.

Given all this, the central question in my mind is “Can all of these interests co-exist in some level of balance that is beneficial to all, but benign in respect to sacrificing any Privacy rights and protections that exist today, much less in the future?” I see it as one of the central challenges of our time and worthy of at least one of my columns in 2015.

The success or failure of our ability to reach a consensus on Privacy will be the great enabler (or disabler) of everyone’s dream for what the Internet, Device Applications, the Internet of Things, etc. can provide today and in the future. Without this understanding all may be lost in my opinion. In this regard I may be alone in my thinking, but only time will tell.

How do we achieve this co-existence? No matter the approach taken, building and maintaining Trust amongst all stakeholders is paramount. Today, there is precious little of this due to recent behavior by both Commerce and Governments. Most polls taken today verify this directly and expose the dilemma that Consumers find themselves in (http://www.pewresearch.org/topics/privacy-and-safety/) when trying to embrace new capabilities that technology can provide and to support their Government’s efforts to keep them safe, while maintaining control over something very critical & essential to their wellbeing i.e. Personal Privacy.

For some time now I have espoused the idea of creating a “Universal Privacy Doctrine”. I see it as an understanding about Privacy that would transcend all Governments, Geographies, Languages and Cultures, a sort of passport if you like which would guarantee everyone a set of basic protections for their Personal Privacy. Many have scoffed at this idea, but given the patchwork of laws, policies, etc. that exist on the matter, much less the global reach of the Internet and Government Surveillance it seems to be the only practical way to define a baseline of minimal protections, which can then be built upon. It ultimately solves the dilemma that if Governments’ are responsible for protecting their Citizens Privacy from others, yet can’t be trusted to do so themselves then where do you go for protection? In terms of practicalities it would take a body such as the United Nations to underwrite such a doctrine, to create the mandate and ultimately to marshal the resources required to enforce it. I would see it as “Privacy Peacekeeping” in its most basic form.

We live in a time where Commerce and Government want free and unfettered access to our most Private data and yet offer nothing in return to the Citizen/Consumer. This pendulum has swung far too much away from the status quo of many decades in respect to established Privacy Protections.  We must find a way to re-balance the scales in favor of the Consumer while supporting these other vested interests in Privacy-protected data.

*-This posting originally appeared as an article in Information Age (UK) in February 2015

For More Information:

You can read my Privacy Corner Series on IBM’s Big Data Hub: http://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/blog/author/richard-lee

In particular please check out my article & podcast:

“A matter of Trust” http://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/blog/privacy-corner-april-2014-role-trust-it-applies-privacy

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Do you have what it takes to be a Data (and Analytics) Leader?*

October 26, 2015 — Leave a comment

In advance of my presentation at the Data Leadership 2015 Conference in London (November 26th) entitled: “Profiles in Data Leadership”, I thought that I would set the tone by asking a fundamental question; Do you have what it (really) takes to be a Data & Analytics Leader? I hope you enjoy it.

It seems that everyone today aspires to be a Leader in whatever activity or organization that they are involved in, no matter their background, capabilities or experience.  Many endeavor to pursue the Mantle of Leadership by engaging in “soft activities” such as writing articles & blogs, social media participation, conference presentations, etc., to demonstrate their abilities & potential, but few are successful it seems. Conventional wisdom says that being promoted to Manager is a pathway to Leadership as well. I disagree with all of these approaches.

Over the course of my career I have come to this belief; Leadership is Earned, not Learned! You can educate anyone on the principles of Leadership, but that does not make them a Leader. Leadership only comes from experience, character, fortitude under fire and other key behavioral/cognitive attributes. Given all this, it brings me to the title of my column this month: “Do you have what it takes to be a Data Leader?”

Recently, Information Age announced its selections for the “Data 50”, a group of data leaders & influencers in the UK. The “50” were chosen from a group of nominated candidates submitted this past Summer (2015). The Data 50 represent an interesting cross-section of data folks in the UK from all sectors and I am familiar with a number of them.  Independent of the Data 50, I have been writing over the course of this “Year of Data Leadership (2015)” about the 8 CEOs whom I have chosen for my series; “Profiles in Data Leadership”. Not surprisingly, there is no overlap between these two groups as they do represent completely different ends of the what I refer to as the Data Leadership spectrum. Let me explain why.

At one end we have the notion of what I call “The Data Leadership Nexus”, a strategic framework for becoming a Predictive Enterprise. Central to this concept is the role of Top-down Leadership by the CEO & Board in guiding the successful exploitation of Data & Analytics by everyone across their Organization in order to make it pervasive and ultimately to create sustainable sources of Competitive Advantage. The Nexus presumes that you have a highly functioning Leadership structure in place already, which is fully accountable for strategic, tactical & operational performance in the classic sense, but has also undergone a transformation over time to be highly competent in areas of data & analytics. This Data Leadership Nexus is Transformational in approach and encompasses Executive Leadership, Core Strategy, Organizational Culture & Technology to achieve its desired outcomes.

At the other end of the Data Leadership spectrum, we have the traditional technology-focused Data Management activity within the IT Organization. Leadership here drives functional responsibilities and is focused on how to best deliver data & analytics as a service to Users and Executives. This is a very critical role in every organization and today and is often referred to as that of the Chief Data Officer. In many of these same Organizations this role may also be responsible for Data Governance activities as well as liaison with Business Units to establish SLA’s, Functional Requirements, etc. The emphasis for this role is to provide technology services & expertise in support of the Organization’s Objectives (strategic, tactical & operational).

In order for any Organization to be successful in its quest to become a Predictive Enterprise, the entire Data Leadership spectrum (both ends, much less the middle) must have inherently strong leaders in all roles that intersect with data, analytics & information governance. Whether top-down, bottom-up or middle-out in respect to the location of these roles or their span of responsibilities, every Data Leader must work from a position of strength & experience in respect to knowledge, acumen & abilities. This is a much deeper set of requirements that almost all other managerial or executive positions.

If you want to become a Data Leader (or a better one if you already are) my advice is as follows; You must be a true leader at your core, one who understands not just the technology, but the why & how of making it a core competency for your Organization in its pursuit of strategic excellence. You must be fully accountable for those who work within your span of responsibilities and lead from the heart. Finally, you must steel yourself each and every day to more worthy and capable of the challenge you have been tasked with. In the end, Leadership is not for everyone, especially those who want the spotlight on themselves constantly.

*This posting in an edited version appears as an article in the November 2015 issue of Information Age (www.information-age.com)

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“Every type of data needs Data Leadership”*

October 13, 2015 — Leave a comment

As we all begin to make our final plans to attend Data Leadership 2015 late in November (http://bit.ly/1YOKrJV), it struck me after reviewing the agenda once again that we have now reached a point where there are now many discrete & different forms of data being used across most enterprises (Public, Private & NFP) on a regular basis. Much of this data now comes from outside the Organization in the form of Open Data, Reference Data, Social Media Data, etc.  All of these data sources are managed to varying SLA’s and Best Practices in respect to quality, veracity, latency, etc., making them extremely suspect at times in my opinion. However, most Enterprises do not question their sources of this external data and simply embrace it for the “Richness” that it provides without consideration of the care & feeding that it has undergone over its lifetime. Why is there such implicit trust here one might ask especially in light of most Organizations’ challenges with their own data in respect to quality, etc.?

The notion of Data Leadership is one where Data, Information & Analytics are treated as core competencies by every organization. As such, they are strategic in their nature and are major leverage points for the Organization to use in creating Competitive Advantage. These core competencies rely on the fact that the data that underpins them is of the highest quality regardless of metric used to evaluate them with. This requirement transcends all industry segments and applies to Government and NGA’s alike. Bad or misleading data in respect to accuracy impacts everyone in a debilitating way. Given this, every Senior Executive has a Data Leadership accountability to make sure that the highest quality standards are maintained, even if the data is sourced from a 3rd party or from the Open Data Community. Herein lies the rub. How do you manage what you don’t control?

As data is monetized and sold by the pound by Reference Data providers,  much less as it is freed up from the government silos that it has been hoarded in for decades by the Open Data Community, it must be made “fit for purpose” and undergo rigorous conditioning to insure that it is “in shape” for consumption regardless of the use case. This is not the case today with the vast majority of what I call 3rd Party Data, most specifically what is sourced from the Open Data portals that now proliferate the landscape. Reference Data & Social Media data are better managed over their lifecycles because there was always a profit motive behind its creation, but it still has its challenges. I will leave that discussion to a future article. For now, let’s focus on the Open Data world.

Open Data now comes from both Government entities (and NGO’s) as well as Commercial interests. Both use these data sets internally to run their Organization and then “hive off” some (or all) of it for sharing with the Open Data Community. In most if not all cases, it is done as a side activity (begrudgingly) by the IT Staff who are always hard pressed to have enough staff, time & other resources to do their “day jobs”. This creates a dynamic that does not foster high quality data in any regard. To overcome this, we must have Data Leadership by those Executives who are accountable for delivering data products to the Open Data Community. They must insure that all data under their watch is representative of what would be acceptable internally by the Org, much less to a higher standard if possible.

We still live in a “Garbage In, Garbage Out” world. You cannot have successful (or believable) Analytics Outcomes without good data as foundation. Forget about creating Competitive Advantage if everyone continues to waste all their cycles on fixing bad data or questioning the source of their truths.

As there will be representatives from both the providers and the users of these 3rd Party data sources at DL 2015, I wanted to impart one basic message to all who are planning on attending; “Every type of data needs Data Leadership”.

As a community of data & analytics professionals we must insist that all data must be guided by some basic Governance principles that affect the useful lifecycle of the data assets that are being created and consumed. I look forward to discussing all of this further with everyone at Data Leadership 2015.

*This article appears in an edited form in the October 2015 issue of Information Age (http://bit.ly/1RCgB6p).

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Data Privacy Day 2015

January 26, 2015 — 2 Comments

I have written two articles for this year’s Data Privacy Day (#DPD15) endeavors . One will be published in the February issue of Information Age (www.information-age.com) and is online now (see link below) & the other is on the IBM Big Data Hub (www.ibmbigdatahub.com) going live on January 28th as a feature on DPD. I encourage all of you to visit these sites;

Information Age: “Personal Privacy, Internet Commerce and National Security: Can they co-exist?” (http://bit.ly/1JsRU6P)

IBM Big Data Hub: “Some Thoughts for Privacy Day 2015” (http://ibm.co/1z6RvUY)

2015 is going to be a critical year in determining the future of Personal Privacy in all respects e.g. Protecting Students Privacy, Reigning in Data Brokers, Thwarting Cyber Attacks, Curtailing Government Surveillance and Snooping, a Refresh of the EU Data Protection Act, President Obama’s “Privacy Bill of Rights”, etc. I believe that it is essential that everyone take an agressive role in managing and protecting their Privacy, along with that of their family members. 

Remember that Privacy is a basic Human Right in many parts of the world and a Civil Liberty in the US. It can only be maintained, much less reinforced if you take an active role in not only protecting your own, but those around you, especially your children.

(Image courtesy of the Online Trust Alliance)

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Data Governance & Information Quality Conference 2013 (DAY 1)

June 17, 2013 — Leave a comment

Today is the first day of the annual DGIQ Conference on beautiful Mission Beach in the San Diego area. It represents the Pilgrimage to Mecca for all of the Data and Information Governance mavens in the world (although we still can’t seem to decide if it is Data or Information that we are Governing). It brings together Newbies, Veterans, Consultants and Vendors under one roof to discuss the Governance, Stewardship and Quality of our data/information. This year the fixation is on Big Data and the role of the Chief Data Office (CDO). These are fashion statements in my view and will be replaced next year no doubt by Privacy (our current fixation).

I am here with my Client, Salt River Project (Phoenix, AZ). They are a publicly-owned Utility (Power and Water) and live in a highly regulated world (NERC/CIP) but operate as a Commercial provider in a very competitive world around them. We are going to discuss their real-world experiences in establishing and maturing Information Governance in a mature bureaucracy. The Central Theme of the presentation focuses on “How to (successfully) Operationalize Information Governance within your Enterprise” (Hint: The message is to “ignore the Consultants and so-called Experts and leverage “what works” within your organization’s culture). It should prove to be an interesting story to tell to such an audience. Can’t wait to hear their reactions.

In addition, I am also here in my capacity of an IBM Information Management Champion. IBM is a Premium Sponsor of the event and will be giving 3x very good presentations on Information Governance. I am looking for some good inputs from these myself.

Finally, I will also be participating in activities associated with the Data Governance Professionals Organization (DGPO), DAMA and the EDM Council. All in all, it should prove to be a valuable investment of time and effort.

Check out the Agenda at:

http://www.debtechint.com/dgiq2013/agenda.html

Stay tuned for more details as the Conference progresses.

In Big Data, Compliance, DGIQ, Governance, Information Governance, Privacy, Regulations , , , ,
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