What is Data Governance?
TL;DR
A framework for systematically managing data quality, security, and compliance—the foundation of trustworthy AI.
Data Governance: Definition & Explanation
Data Governance is the framework by which an organization systematically manages the quality, security, privacy, and compliance of its data through policies, roles, and processes. It clarifies data owners and stewards and defines who may access which data and how it may be used. Governance is especially important in the generative-AI era: if the origin, quality, and sensitivity of data fed to LLMs is unmanaged, the risk of leaks and erroneous outputs rises. Strong data governance is core to 'AI readiness' and operates in concert with data catalogs, data lineage, access controls, and data-quality monitoring. Platforms such as Collibra, Atlan, Alation, and Microsoft Purview support governance workflows.