Access Governance

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What Does Access Governance Mean?

Access governance is the idea of managing individual user access in ways that protect networks and systems. It's the application of specific policy to access paradigms, and a broad overarching framework for how access works in a given digital environment.

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Techopedia Explains Access Governance

In a way, access governance is a term that's based on the widespread use of the phrase "data governance." Data governance refers to deliberate and planned handling of data assets. Similarly, access governance implies that a company is being very deliberate about access policies and procedures.

Access governance has, in some ways, taken over from the term "identity and access management" (IAM) where various enterprise tools help companies to achieve setting user access levels, granting permissions and doing other access management work. But asset governance is a stricter term in the sense that it suggests there are solid policies and procedures enforceable throughout the network that limit access in very detailed ways.

This allows companies to achieve two (sometimes conflicting) goals at once which would enable people to do legitimate work that they need to do, without leaving sensitive data assets vulnerable to disgruntled employees or other malicious actors.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.