Data Governance

Policies, rules and tools that enables better control and exploitation of the data produced and processed at CERN.

Introduction

There are three fundamental pillars of the CERN’s data governance:

The data is managed to optimize operational purposes

The data produced, processed and stored must be secured

The data with long term value is preserved

The Data Governance aims at:

  • Ensuring that data‑protection principles are integrated into CERN’s IT vision, architecture, and long‑term planning
  • Setting up a Data Governance Framework composed of policies, processes and tools made available to people that need them and that allows to achieve the level of data quality defined in CERN’s Data Strategy
  • Ensuring the highest possible quality of data
  • Covering the security risks that the data is subject to and ensure data confidentiality, integrity and availability (with CSO)
  • Ensuring the protection of personal data processed (with ODP)

CERN Data governance (internal)

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Priorities

Data Governance implies the collaboration of all entities involved in the management of information. Centralizing the definition of the information governance roles and responsibilities clarifies the obligations and the expected contributions from all actors. CERN already runs well defined Information Systems with clear mandates.

Setting up a global Data Governance framework gives the opportunity to increase the synergy and the definition of the overall responsibilities.

To achieve its objective, the focus in 2026 is to converge the data management in three main directions:

A common Data Classification schema, visible to all users

The alignment of all computing services to the Data Protection rules

A shared Data Retention Schedule registry covering all types of data