InfoWorld wrote a great article last week about data management. Recent data breaches is are demonstrating a clear trend - companies don’t know what information they have, or where it is.

Iron Mountain recently released a survey with 2000 IT professionals and legal experts about data storage. Their survey found that 65% of respondents do not have a records management strategy. This affects data retention, storage, back-up and management.

Laura McDaniel, director of compliant records management at Iron Mountain had this to say:

“From a records management standpoint, most companies may have some sort of retention schedule or policies or procedures in place, but many are still in the dark ages in terms of adopting these rules across their entire organization, especially for electronic records.”

38% of companies report uniform policies for the disposal of confidential information, despite government and industry regulations in this area. Companies could also extend a data destruction strategy to include the ability to remotely delete breached data.

The survey did indicate a positive trend toward companies committing to enterprise-wide records management. One of the barriers to implementation has been a lack of senior-level support for the program, and clearly defined roles for committee members. The next obstacle is identifying where all the data resides in the company.

Tags: data security, data mangement, records management, data, it security