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You are viewing ARCHIVED CONTENT released online between 1 April 2010 and 24 August 2018 or content that has been selectively archived and is no longer active. Content in this archive is NOT UPDATED, and links may not function.Extract from article by James Schellhase
Despite the many potential benefits of big data analytics, the unrestrained creation and retention of data has the potential to bury organizations under a mountain of legal, regulatory and operational challenges. According to IDC, by the year 2020, about 1.7 megabytes of new information will be created every second for every human on the planet. Meanwhile, MIT Technology review estimated that only 0.5 percent of all the data we’re creating is ever analyzed. While most organizations would benefit by increasing this percentage, it’s clear that “dark data” – the information organizations collect and store, but fail to use for other purposes – is mostly debris that serves only to increase infrastructure costs and expose organizations to risk and liability, especially when this data flows beyond the firewall.
Organizations of all sizes and types now typically share information via unified communications, including instant messages, social media channels and text messages, and they rely on third-party information vendors to host and manage their data in the cloud. Unfortunately, such activities can expose organizations to the risk of significant fines and reputational damage because today’s evolving legal and regulatory environment makes organizations potentially responsible for information exposed by third parties. In fact, regulations such as SOX and BCBSS 239, along with evolving privacy laws, have now made compliance departments equally responsible with legal departments for the health of their organizations.