Data Management Compliance

HOW BUSINESSES ACHIEVE
DATA MANAGEMENT COMPLIANCE

Data Management Compliance

Organisations face increasingly demanding information and data management compliance requirements.

All of the data and documentation generated across an organisation must be handled in strict compliance with a growing range of industry, national and international regulations. In the EU and the UK, GDPR is an over-arching regulation. While in the USA, companies must comply with HIPAA, CCPA and FERPA.

To meet these compliance challenges, companies need to ensure that they have a robust and progressive document data management strategy.

Need for compliant file sharing

Large companies distribute thousands of documents for collaborative contribution and approvals. This file circulation raises the serious issue of how to control access to confidential document content.

Knowledge managers need to establish clear and robust controls for document access rights. It is becoming increasingly critical for achieving compliancy that only people permitted to see specific information are able to gain access to the documents that contain it.

Steps to data management compliance

The Document Manager software suite addresses risks and issues, and helps enforce compliance codes of practice by enabling:

Auditing of every action in relation to each document
Tight control over who is permitted to view each document
Control over which actions each user is permitted to undertake in relation to each document

Additionally, Document Manager’s workflow functionality digitally imitates the physical mail path that paper documents would traditionally follow through a business.

Embedded compliance management

Unlike paper processes, digital workflow enables strict user access control at every stage and requires no intermediary handling between the authorised users.

The digital document workflow process achieves the same result more efficiently and with a great deal more security than could be achieved with a physical paper mail system.

Document Manager’s redaction (data masking) tools can even control who is permitted to see selected areas and data within a document.

Document Manager’s workflow also enables users to implement sophisticated access rules. For example, varying approval-level hierarchies based on invoice value, or HR document access based on a staff member’s role.

These access permissions enable each member of staff to have a set approval authority limit. Invoices over a person’s approval limit will automatically escalate to his or her line manager for approval.

Document Manager’s built-in data compliance management tools

Document Managers data management compliance tools include:

Encryption
Access controls
Permission levels
Redaction tools
Full audit trails
Automated data retention and deletion

THE LEGAL NEED FOR DOCUMENT DATA MANAGEMENT COMPLIANCE

To comply with legislation, it is crucial that companies implement effective document capture and management systems.

It is, however, a common misconception that implementing a document management system alone will ensure compliance.

Document data management is one very important component but a company must address compliance holistically if they are to ensure their business maintains and meets the requirements of ever changing legislation.

When a business finds itself defending its position in a court of law, the judge will consider whether:

Information management procedures are clear and consistent. Therefore, these procedures must be clearly established and documented. This is often referred to as a ˜Document Policy’.
Are the procedures enforced? This is a shared responsibility between management and the selected document management system’s access and permission controls.
Can the company substantiate its claim to compliance? This rests heavily on the document management system’s audit trail provision.

Document Logistix recommends that our clients adopt the recommendations for Legal Admissibility as defined by BSI in BSI0008:2008 or ISO/TR 15801.

Document Manager can be used in a compliant way to help meet these recommendations but much responsibility rests with the business to define and control the process.

However, whatever security and compliance protocols an organisation deems necessary can be embedded into Document Manager to automate workflows, compliant storage and escalation paths.

Conclusion: Data Compliance Management

Data management compliance involves ensuring that an organisation’s data handling practices meet legal, regulatory and ethical standards. Required compliance measures include data privacy, security, accuracy and accessibility.

Compliance frameworks like GDPR or HIPAA guide organisations in protecting sensitive information, avoiding breaches and ensuring accountability in managing and storing data.

The Document Manager data management compliance module enables organisations to meet their compliance obligations.