We’re on a bit of a kick to define important terms in businesses’ approach to technology. Last month it was IT management vs cybersecurity management. Why are we defining things like IT management, cybersecurity management, data integrity and data security? Because properly framing the conversations around each can have profound impacts on how businesses can correctly approach these disciplines. In today’s business environment, your approach to technology cannot be anything less than stellar; understanding the differences between these terms can have a huge impact on the efficacy of your approach to each respective discipline.

Data security

Data security is probably the term you’re more familiar with (even if only on an instinctive level). Every business, no matter the field, has sensitive data. It could be names and addresses of customers; it could be credit card numbers and social security numbers; it could be medical records or travel records… no matter what industry you’re in or who you serve as your core clientele, you possess sensitive data.

Data security is the protocol and processes you use to keep that data confidential.

Think about data security as things like permission management, multi-factor authentication, identity and access management, threat detection, security analytics, advanced cryptographic hashing of stored data, etc. It’s all the things you do to protect data from leaking to anyone not authorized to view or access said data.

Data security refers to the protection of data; data integrity refers to the trustworthiness of data.

Data integrity

Much like data security, almost every business utilizes data to make decisions. Whether it’s as simple as inventory management or next-gen artificial intelligence engines crunching an avalanche of advanced analytics, companies use data to make all sorts of decisions. Data integrity refers to the trustworthiness of the data on which you’re basing those decisions.

How data is entered, how it’s logged, how it’s stored, how it’s accessed, how it’s analyzed and how it’s presented are all crucial steps in the chain of data integrity. Entire companies and their respective futures can depend on gathering quality data and using that data to make the most informed, wisest decisions available.

But according to a recent report from KPMG, the majority of c-suite executives don’t trust the way their company analyzes the data to which they have access:

“The firm surveyed 2,190 global senior executives, and found that just 35 percent say they have a high level of trust in the way their organization uses data and analytics. Their concerns over the risks of data, analytics, and AI are high, with about two-thirds having some reservations or active mistrust in their data and analytics.”

It’s not just about how you capture and store data… it’s about how reliable the entire lifecycle of your data is so. Only when that entire lifecycle is buttoned up can you ensure you’re making the best decisions with the most accurate information at all times.

That’s where we come in.

We design and build data integrity processes, protocols and systems so you’re part of that 35% of executives with high trust in your data and analytics operations. We ensure you’re capturing, storing, maintaining and preserving the data you want and the data you need to best run your company to compete.

Give us a shout so we can help you build up your data integrity today.