# Data governance · Glossary
What data governance means in the Rodan Data Stack: ownership, inventory, quality, access, lifecycle and privacy controls that make data trustworthy.
[Glossary](/glossary)

# Data governance

     The set of decisions, roles and controls that determine who can do what with which data, and who is accountable when it goes wrong. It is not a compliance project you finish once.

## What it covers

     In the Rodan Data Governance Toolkit we score six domains: ownership, inventory, quality, access, lifecycle and privacy. Together they answer one question: **can we lawfully use and trust this data?**

     Good governance enables trustworthy reporting, defensible AI adoption, faster deals and regulatory resilience. Weak governance shows up as metric drift, vendor sprawl and AI deployed before classification.

## What it is not

     It is not buying a catalogue tool, running a one-off audit or appointing a committee that cannot stop non-compliant projects. Governance only counts when it changes behaviour.

## Score yourself

     [Take the governance maturity self-check](/governance/assess) (~30 min, runs in your browser) or browse the [governance toolkit](/governance/toolkit) with sector overlays and working templates.

## Related terms

- [Data maturity](/glossary/data-maturity): can you reach, join and analyse the data you have governed?

- [Commercial insights](/glossary/insights): can you turn trusted, reachable data into decisions?
HTML: https://rodan.io/glossary/data-governance