IBM launches data governance initiatives and tools for GDPR compliance

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IBM says it is introducing sweeping advances to its data governance and data science initiatives designed to help developers and analysts leverage cognitive computing to help them comply with new data regulations such as the European Union’s upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

IDC predicts that by 2018, 75% of all developers will embed cognitive in their applications – but as data volumes explode, and data protection regulation mounts, the ability to effectively manage and exploit that data diminishes, IBM says.

For instance, on May 25, 2018, the European Union will put into effect GDPR, a continent-wide set of requirements designed to protect its citizens’ personal information – any data “that can be used to directly or indirectly identify a person,” from a name to a post on social media. Organizations within or outside of Europe, that process or hold such personal data of EU citizens and fail to comply with GDPR could potentially face extremely stiff financial penalties that will range from 4% of the organization’s annual global revenue to 20 million euros.

With such profound technical change so imminent, organizations across Europe, and around the world, are reviewing and considering an array of solutions and processes that can help them better handle personal data and meet the requirements. 

At the heart of preparing for regulation, such as GDPR, is data governance, which provides diligent and comprehensive data management practices for data integrity, security, usability, and availability.

To make this easier for organizations and drive widespread adoption of data governance, IBM announced on Thursday the Open Data Governance Consortium for Apache Atlas.

Atlas is the Apache Foundation’s data governance framework for Hadoop. The project is currently in Apache’s “incubator” phase of development. One of the goals of the consortium is to collaborate to quickly advance it to “Top Level Project” status, at which point the technology will be available for open development contributions, download and distribution – and making robust governance capabilities open and free to the public.

Meanwhile, IBM also announced three new solutions for helping clients meet their growing data protection compliance demands by gain greater control of their data. The solutions include:

  • IBM Unified Governance Software Platform: a new software platform comprising data management capabilities, including many which may be mapped to the GDPR, such as cognitive metadata harvest, lineage tracking, policy enforcement, data integration services and persona-based reporting
  • Information Governance Catalog Download & Go: a new software download that lets clients download, install and run specific governance tools directly to their systems, quickly and easily
  • StoredIQ: the data discovery software that helps users identify the types of unstructured data residing across their organizations, has been augmented with new analytics “cartridges,” or software modules, that people can download at no cost to begin recognizing sensitive, personal data, as well. Available for 15 European Union (EU) country-specific downloads, and their 11 languages, these cartridges are designed to help shorten the time it takes to discover personal data and better prepare for rising regulation, like GDPR.

 IBM also said it was expanding its data science and machine learning innovations across Europe by launching its IBM Data Science Experience (DSX) in its London data center, and its Machine Learning Hub in Boblingen, Germany.

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