The purpose of an information governance program is to provide insight into information that is the most valuable to the organization, while minimizing associated risks and costs. Until recently, organizations focused less on the latter and heavily on gaining insight into the most valuable information. The reason for this change is largely due to the increasing number of data breaches happening in various industries all across the globe. It is a risk that simply can’t be ignored.

We expect this year to be the year of stakeholder collaboration. Gone are the days of the information technology, business units, and legal teams working in silos. All should be working together for the organization’s information governance to be a success.

Some projects we expect organizations to focus on in 2016 include:

• Inventory of unstructured and structured data repositories and document access control permissions
• Reduce digital footprint by defensibly disposing of information that is no longer needed according to corporate policy and legal requirements
• Inventory third party vendor agreements for compliance with your organization’s data privacy and security requirements
• Understand where sensitive data (SSN’s, credit card, driver’s license, passport, tax identification, etc.) is stored in the organization and implement measures to protect it
• Create and implement a data privacy and security awareness policy and program

This list is just the tip of the iceberg. What information governance projects is your organization focusing on in 2016?