Need for Database Cleaning Highlighted by former Information Commissioner
Wed 18 November 2009
Database cleansing and keeping records up to date will be the next big growth area in data protection.
According to former Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, now a strategy adviser for the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL) at law firm Hunton & Williams, the next big controversy will be over inadequate data cleansing.
Thomas stated that the challenge for companies is "not only to be confidential and secure, but also up to date and accurate". Thomas said: As the cost of storage has plummeted people are keeping more and more data. This increases the risk of it being out of date, inaccurate, or no longer relevant. That is going to cause problems for those who are putting data cleansing to one side.
He advised that companies should consider how long they keep data, and how regularly the data is checked for accuracy. I predict that the problems will escalate dramatically over the next few years. There will be scandals where people will suffer real harm from inaccurate data. Companies are not thinking through the issues very well and often have not got good policies in place How long do we keep customer data? How long do we keep staff data? How long do we keep supplier data? And how do we make sure it is all kept up to date? And if we are still using it, how do we know it is still accurate?
Don't collect it without thinking, don't keep it without thinking and make sure you manage your data actively, said Thomas.
Synergy Connections offer a telephone based database cleaning and validation service. They can call through a list of customers, supplier or prospects, uppdating contact information, adding missing elements, and identifying obsolete records. In addition to ensuring compliance with the Data Protection Act, accurate data can provide a significant cost saving by reducing print and postage spent sending information to out of date contact records.
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