Australian business must treat the protection of personally identifiable information (PII) as a priority – lest they risk up to $A50 million in penalties. PII is stored by businesses in nearly every sector. PII includes any sensitive information that can be used to identify an individual, such as their name, address, phone number or financial details like credit card and tax file numbers. If there is a data breach and this information is compromised, it could lead to disastrous privacy violations or even identity theft.

The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) is seeking to rectify serious issues with its Information Management capabilities, issuing a tender for market feedback on options for fixing its "obsolete" systems, in three phases over five years.

The last couple of years has seen many organisations around the world establishing executive-level Chief Data Officers (CDO).  In making those appointments, perhaps those organisations are realising (finally) that their decades-long preoccupation with technology, at the expense of their data, has left them with significant ‘data-debt’?  And further, that data-debt is having a drag-effect, a negative impact on their plans to join the digital transformation wave sweeping the planet.