Glossary
Data Governance
The policies, rights and infrastructures that determine how data is collected, accessed, shared, protected and deleted.
Last reviewed 2026-08-22
In plain language
AI systems depend on data pipelines. Data governance includes data-protection law, statistical confidentiality, open-data policy, intellectual property, and community or Indigenous data-sovereignty claims. Treating AI as separate from data governance misses how training data, labeling labor and surveillance infrastructures shape model behavior.
Why it matters for AI governance
Many AI disputes are data disputes: consent, scraping, public-sector data reuse, and cross-border transfers. Effective AI policy is incomplete without data policy.