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The International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) released its Organizational Digital Governance Report 2024 offering valuable insights into how organizations grapple with the rapidly evolving world of digital governance. The IAPP’s findings illustrate a number of working structures enterprises are exploring to address and manage risk head-on, but wonder what navigating the complex landscape of digital governance may look like in the future. 

Similarly, the 2025 Governance Outlook, published by the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), reveals that a key boardroom priorities for 2025 should be increased attention to risk management. The NACD report advises that “agreements should be reached regarding what early warning signs should be reported to the board.”

Each of these reports survey executive leadership and directors across industries to identify trends and priorities for decision-making in 2025. Let’s dive into some of the key takeaways from the IAPP report and explore what industry leaders are doing to mitigate risk and drive organizational excellence in the year ahead.

What is Digital Governance?

Digital governance can mean something different at each organization. For some, it can be a catch-all term for enterprise risk management. At others, it may be any combination of privacy and data protection, AI governance, cybersecurity, content moderation, online safety, platform liability, digital accessibility, data governance, and ethics. 

It can also include governance needs associated with copyright, trade, law enforcement, and national security, competition, third-party management, and civil rights as they intersect with a company’s development, use, or deployment of digital goods and services.

“The advent of new laws and policies, in combination with the application of long-standing regulations, has created a complex matrix of compliance obligations and risks for organizations.” – IAPP

Within the IAPP’s report, an anonymized group of business leaders found that every organization implores a unique strategy to mitigate risk. To define and implement digital governance, each organization must assess their unique business model, technology applications, risk exposes and appetites, and their resources available to drive transformation of their organizational digital governance.

Why is digital governance crucial to executive leadership and board members?

The matrix of digital governance extends throughout each organization. From cybersecurity and AI governance to product liability, accessibility, and intellectual property, regulators are racing to create new requirements for regulatory compliance to define and broaden the state of digital governance.

The IAPP report finds “The advent of new laws and policies, in combination with the application of long-standing regulations, has created a complex matrix of compliance obligations and risks for organizations. The risks associated with receiving a fine, being ordered to change business practices and experiencing broader reputational harm as a result of noncompliance are forcing functions on whether and how organizations categorize, prioritize and respond to digital governance.”

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Digital Governance Regulation is Complex and Evolving

The IAPP report introduces the concept of “digital entropy,” a state of disorder and uncertainty caused by the proliferation of new technologies. A growing web of regulations across various domains like data protection, cybersecurity, AI, and content moderation further complicates this entropy. 

These overlapping and sometimes conflicting compliance requirements make it difficult for organizations to coordinate and operationalize effective responses. The “alphabet soup” of digital governance regulations is complex and continually evolving. Look at the EU for example,

“…as part of its Digital Strategy, the EU has built a broad framework for digital governance — with the EU General Data Protection Regulation, Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act, Data Governance Act, Data Act, AI Act, European Health Data Space, eIDAs regulation and NIS2 Directive all contributing to a growing body of standards for the digital market to follow.”

Researching and understanding the differences between regulations is a challenge even for mature organizations. Harder still is operationalizing a risk management and incident response process to meet compliance with them all. However, the devil is in the details, and each regulation can have serious consequences for missed compliance obligations.

The Path Forward

Organizations are beginning a long journey to recast their approach to governing digital technologies. This journey requires careful consideration of organizational culture, business models, risk exposures, and available resources. The report emphasizes the importance of moving from fragmented approaches to more coordinated and coherent models.

The report emphasizes the importance of moving from fragmented approaches to more coordinated and coherent models.

Opportunities to Accelerate Digital Governance

The urgency behind robust digital governance policies is driven by the rapid acceleration and integration of new technologies coupled with the need to ensure these technologies are used responsibly, safely, and in compliance with applicable regulations

While the landscape of risk will continue to evolve and change, establishing policies to combat risk will accrue value over time, so the sooner you start, the better.

Here are a few places to begin your digital governance transformation.

  • Establish a consistent risk matrix. Digital governance encompasses a wide array of areas including privacy and data protection, AI governance, cybersecurity, online safety, e-commerce, product liability, and more. With a consistent risk matrix to assess risks, you can standardize your approach to evaluating and managing risks within the organization and from partners. This allows for a more efficient and effective risk management process as all employees are on the same page and following the same guidelines. This consistency helps to minimize the chances of overlooking any critical risks that could have a significant impact on the organization and provides ample audit trails for regulatory reporting.
  • Respond to Regulation: New laws and policies create a complex web of compliance obligations and risks for organizations. As business practices evolve new regulations will always emerge in the effort of mitigating risk and organizations should be prepared to define, document, and defend their management of risk to effectively communicate with regulators.
    • C-suite Responsibility: The magnitude of regulatory risks is driving changes in how organizations assign responsibility at the C-suite level. The role of the Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) is expanding to include other digital governance subdomains, such as AI governance, data governance, and ethics. Other roles, like the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Chief Technology Officer, and Chief Data Officer are also acquiring prominent stakes. As the NACD report shares, cybersecurity expertise is a key driver for boards in 2025.
    • Aligned Governance: Adopting a model to streamline processes and structures into a more singularly defined methodology can simplify intake, assessment, and resolution of potential incidents. With increased automation, enhanced use of AI and data for decision-making, simplified policy frameworks, and consolidation of governance, risk, and compliance activities, your organization can expedite time to incident resolution and reap the benefits of a mature enterprise risk methodology.

      How RadarFirst Can Help

      The IAPP report underscores the urgent need for organizations to take a proactive approach to digital governance. Radar Compliance® can help your organization navigate this complex landscape. With its robust tools for managing compliance across multiple domains, including privacy, cybersecurity, and AI, Radar Compliance can streamline your digital governance efforts.

      Simplify your digital governance journey with Radar® Compliance