Data Governance & Compliance

Data Governance

Governance is the key to avoiding common pitfalls of big data across large and diverse organisations, such as multiple versions of the “truth”, where inconsistent data that can be extracted by different teams will result in a lack of data confidence from stakeholders and ultimately, customers. 

Talan has successfully driven large scale Customer Due Diligence projects for Global Financial Service Organisations, where identifying, validating, mapping and documenting disparate data sources within an organisation is vital to building a complete view of customers and their connections. We have also serviced many large-volume remediation projects, for both static and live client populations, creating live customer mailing datamarts with verified data source mappings and auditable data source snapshots for mailed data. 

Talan is invested in the next generation of Big Data solutions, including Databricks and Microsoft Fabric, which provide data source mapping and traceability, allowing the creation of a Data Lakehouse, with full data source auditing.

Data Governance common pitfalls:

• Inconsistent and low-quality data leading to errors and mistrust in reporting. 
• Lack of ownership and accountability, making it hard to resolve issues. 
• Compliance and security risks due to weak controls and poor data visibility. 
• Data silos and inefficiencies, hindering collaboration and decision-making. 
• Missed opportunities for value creation, as unreliable data limits analytics and innovation.

Data Governance specifics delivered: 

• Metadata Management: Establishing a centralised data catalogue to document data definitions, ownership, and usage. 
• Data Profiling & Quality Checks: Analysing data for accuracy, completeness, and consistency to identify and address quality issues. 
• Trust Indexes: Creating metrics to assess and communicate confidence in data sources and datasets. 
• Data Lineage Implementation: Mapping data flows to track origin, transformations, and usage across systems for transparency and impact analysis.

Data Compliance

This pertains to the privacy of personal and business information and how businesses and organisations store, retrieve, and secure this sensitive data. It also must be able to meet legal and regulatory requirements. For example, in the case of GDPR this means that a customer’s stored data must be retrieved within a legally defined time frame upon request. Personal Data must also be kept securely, and only for long enough for it to be processed for its stated purpose. 

Talan has successfully delivered projects involving the creation of large volume regulatory reporting, for bodies such as the FSA. We also have experience of applying regulatory requirements, such as GDPR and customer-contact preferences, to remediation mailings.

This pertains to the privacy of personal and business information and how organisations store, retrieve, and secure sensitive data. Compliance must also extend to legal and regulatory obligations. For example, under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), organisations must not only respond to Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs) within a legally defined timeframe but also uphold a broader set of principles. These include lawfulness, and transparency in data processing; purpose limitation; data minimisation; accuracy; storage limitation; integrity and confidentiality; and accountability. Personal data must be collected for specific, legitimate purposes, kept securely, and retained only for as long as necessary. GDPR thus governs the full lifecycle of personal data, from collection through to lawful disposal.