Jacki Cheslow (j.cheslow@ieee.org) is Global Compliance Program Leader for New York City-based The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Incorporated.
The relationship between compliance and record and information management (RIM) is growing, and in some instances, RIM is being merged into compliance programs. So it is important for compliance professionals, at a minimum, to have an understanding of the basic tenets of RIM and the risks of poor RIM practices versus the benefits of good RIM practices. In this first part of a two-part series, we’ll be exploring the importance of a well-designed RIM program and how you can assess your own program (or create one) accordingly.
A great starting point for those interested in learning more is ARMA International’s Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles®[1] (Principles). ARMA International is a global association of record, information management, and information governance professionals focused on creating standards and guidelines for managing information and records throughout their life cycle. The Principles are designed to provide organizations with a standard of conduct for governing information and give compliance professionals the guidelines by which to judge (or base) their record and information programs on. We will look at them in more detail, but let’s first take a moment to consider the scope of the RIM challenge most organizations are facing today.
A sea of information
Very recently, I came across this quote from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who predicts that “50 billion devices will be connected by 2030” and notes that “90% of the data that we have today was created in the last two years.”[2] That’s a pretty astounding statement until you look at what’s happening every day. Consider that as of July 2020, there were more than 4.8 billion internet users in the world; 18.1 million text messages were sent every minute last year. In 2019, 188 million emails were sent in the world every minute. Every 24 hours, 500 million tweets are published on Twitter. Every day, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created.[3] Just think about it: 2.5 quintillion bytes of data would fill 10 million Blu-ray discs and, when stacked, would equal the height of four Eiffel Towers.
When you consider some of these statistics, it is easy to recognize that organizations need to get control of their information before it gets out of control.
