Canadian Lawyer

18 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m T E C H S U P P O RT @k8simpson O P I N I O N Today, there are even more pressures on our electronically stored informa- tion with ever-increasing anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, cybersecu- rity, and privacy obligations. How and where we store, process, manage, and use/re-use client data is becoming more strictly regulated. "How much data?" and "For how long?" are now core to the checklist of questions regulators ask companies fol- lowing a data breach. Regulators want you to be ready with knowing who your clients are, the data held about them, and how to notify them in the event of a breach. Firms should adopt more of these proactive best practices being developed, not only to help create better data security and management internally, but also to lessen the impact felt by clients following any such failure. A Capgemini Report from 2014 summed it up by saying: "Regulatory compliance is becoming a data manage- ment game." Firms as well as financial institutions need to start developing capabilities in data integration, data quality, and data governance to ensure regulatory compliance. Good data man- agement (however unsexy such projects ultimately are) may turn out to be very good for the future of our businesses. If we don't mend our ways, and as the flood of information deepens and becomes more complex, we will strug- gle to meet even basic data needs of our lawyers — some of which didn't seem to be so hard in our paper past. Managing paper: It was messy at times, but at least one knew where everything on a matter might be. Need an address? Pull the matter file, there'll be a tatty label on the front with contact details. Need the notes you made from the last client contact? Pull the same matter file, your scribbles will be there on the familiar yellow paper in its pleas- ing chronological file order. Updated that final agreement? Pull the matter file and replace the previously filed version. Oh, how much simpler it all seemed back then. Computers have certainly helped clear up some of the visible mess of paper files (though perhaps not at my desk), but they have created another kind of mayhem in the organization of a firm's information. "Infobesity" and "drowning in the information flood" are familiar, almost-funny metaphors we live with today. It might be that we he information we hold on our clients, their businesses, transactions, trials, and strategies can no longer be held on unprotected hard drives or sent willy-nilly through the exposed airwaves. "Regulators are push- ing firms to get better at knowing their customers, and managing their data more comprehensively than they have in the past," says Deloitte in November 2015's CIO Journal. This push began some years ago with the know-your-client professional obligations placed on banks, law firms, and others to collect identification information and understand client's activities and risk profiles for their investment decisions. T Know your client & other data management games By Kate Simpson

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