Imagine that an auditor finds a discrepancy in your documentation, something you signed off on. There is no way to prove that the documents were tampered with, so your enterprise must pay a fine that matches 2% of global turnover (note that GDPR will also apply if data is being processed). This fine isn’t far-fetched; it is a documented circumstance that has happened multiple times across the European Union. This article tackles what might trigger this situation and how to implement preventive measures.
Data governance is not a new concept in the business environment. Its regulatory spectrum is also known to be one of the strictest and most widely incorporated, especially with data privacy and protection. The Data Governance Act (DGA) is the European Union regulation that establishes clear guidelines for securing the data handled within our digital economy.
The emphasis is that businesses must ensure data transparency, security, and accountability. Of course, this plays a stronger role in sensitive data - how it is processed, shared, and stored.
On the other hand, non-compliance is also an urgent concern. The enforcement of the DGA belongs to national authorities. This means that the severity of penalties and the interpretation of regulations can vary, translating to uncertainty for businesses. Ultimately, that lack of stable ground puts you at the mercy of specific authorities and the discretion of those issuing judgment.
Now, as a business, you can understand the core principles of data integrity and validation displayed by the DGA and move forward to mitigate the compliance gaps to help your enterprise stay ahead of potential penalties or operational deficiencies.
This article depicts Truth Enforcer and data verification as the solutions to this uncertain, liable, and complex compliance environment.
The DGA compliance: Integrity and Verification
The Data Governance Act is another effort to steer organizations in handling data. In that sense, the Act makes its measures mandatory - from protecting data integrity, to ensuring transparency, and enforcing accountability. The people within organizations need to understand that prioritizing compliance means avoiding legal repercussions and maintaining trust with stakeholders.
Your business cannot afford to overlook this aspect of compliance strategy.
When companies fail to implement proper verification and validation systems, they risk being caught off guard during audits or inspections, where tampered or inaccurate documents could be flagged as non-compliant. The challenge can be faced by creating a safe environment for any data exchange. It needs to be appropriate for any entity within the European Union, from the private to the public sector, while promoting innovation and ensuring the proper management of data. The standards that most define this Act and try to bring authenticity forward are:
- Data Transparency: Enterprises must expose what they do to the stakeholders and ensure the data processes are traceable.
- Data Security: Protocols must be in place to protect data against unauthorized access and/or tampering.
- Data Accountability: Responsibility rests with those who possess and handle the data – this part must be clear.
On the other hand, failure to comply and being caught by national authorities breaking these regulatory guidelines goes into the variability and uncertainty mentioned above and increases the danger of:
- Hefty Fines: You may incur severe financial penalties and damage your company severely.
- Legal Consequences: In cases of falsification or negligence, individuals may also face criminal charges and/or imprisonment.
- Reputational Harm: People and businesses do not want to associate with non-compliant environments or negotiate with highly liable entities. This misassociation means losing customers, partners, and investors due to fear and lacking confidence in your enterprise.
With these risks in mind, you must act proactively by implementing data validation systems to help you avoid these bottlenecks and damages and safeguard your compliance.
The framework that you must keep in mind goes as follows:
- Document tampering detection: Get the ability to identify unauthorized changes to data or documents.
- Reliable audit trails: Record data transactions to create an authoritative history of changes and corresponding accountability.
- Continuous verification: Ongoing data integrity validation can ensure that information remains unaltered during transmission, storage, and processing.
Moving forward, internalize that data verification becomes one of the priorities of data governance. From the fear of hacking or changes from human interference, the risks are too many and continuously evolving. In other words, you must account for intentional and unintentional changes to your data that might jeopardize your whole enterprise. Thus, you must have data verification infrastructures in place.
You can validate data authenticity and detect any unauthorized modifications. This is all about implementing the mechanisms that will do it for you - no more manual checks. Note that a comprehensive data verification strategy must include validation controls that are aligned with the organization's data production rhythm.
Secure DGA Compliance and Trust with Truth Enforcer
Awareness of accountability and treating compliance with seriousness will mitigate the reactive consequences of fines, legal disputes, and reputational harm. Businesses must make data integrity and verification a priority and competitive advantage, instead of a liability.
The strategic imperative aligns with the data accuracy, transparency, and security requirements depicted in the Data Governance Act. As such, tampered documents or unverified records are no longer acceptable, and traditional access controls are insufficient.
We suggest a shield against these compliance gaps in this setup: Truth Enforcer. The solution that enables you to verify authenticity and certify integrity within your systems without letting the content of your digital assets leave your side.
Guarantee data verification: technology that ensures documents remain verifiable.
Streamline audits: Regulators can validate compliance in seconds with irrefutable proof of integrity.
Trust built with transparency: Stakeholders, from investors to customers, gain confidence in your data-verified decisions.
Future-proof security: Meets evolving security requirements regarding data verification mechanisms.
Truth Enforcer uses blockchain-based timestamping to create immutable proof of data integrity. For example, when a German healthcare provider needs to share patient trial data and the receiver wants to check its authenticity, this “proof feature” can reduce their audit preparation time by 55%.
Our solution provides a way to integrate a verification method into your operations without disrupting current systems. This builds your trust as if it were a currency; verifiable data integrity strengthens your partnerships, secures more investments, and differentiates your brand.
Waiting for an audit to expose vulnerabilities is a gamble with existential stakes. Truth Enforcer provides a practical and scalable solution ready for Salesforce and SharePoint if that is where you want it right now.
Don’t let penalties be the moment you start to make decisions.
Schedule a free demo, request a free trial, and try to transform data integrity from a regulatory challenge into your organization’s strongest asset.
By Francisco Rodrigues, Business Analyst
"I'm writing about how software integrations can adapt to business environments and respond to industry-specific demands. I want to show enterprises the road to streamline processes, eliminate bottlenecks, and ensure compliance by empowering teams and C-suite executives with the right tools."