Sustainable data governance in the era of global data security challenges in Nigeria: A narrative review

Abstract

Data are now valued as the new oil that powers the world economy. Globally, Big data technologies have intensified the need for Sustainable Data Governance (SDG). Significant empirical evidence from literature revealed that about 2.7 zettabytes of data now in the digital universe are being threatened by cybercrime incidents that are on the rise globally. Despite the importance of SDG and cyber security, only 67% of organizations globally deployed data governance or data intelligence solutions, while 46% including Nigeria had no formal governance strategy in place. This study highlights strategies to leverage good security measures for SDG. The authors adopted the Data Management Association (DAMA) International Guide to the Data Management Body of Knowledge (DMBOK) (DAMA-DMBOK) as a conceptual framework for this study. The narrative review methodology was adopted, where related research findings from peer-reviewed articles are used to draw holistic findings that revealed significant information on strategies for leveraging excellent security practices within SDG for economic empowerment. Results show that data governance, a fundamental part of cyber security, ensures that the right people have the right access, while Information Security ensures that Enterprise Data is safe and locked down. Cyber security is at the core of ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability of organizations’ data and leveraging data governance program that ensures that safe data is accessible across the organization in a controlled manner. The result of this study may increase understanding, and awareness of the need for information security to leverage SDG required for economic empowerment.