Data governance is core to AI success. But how?

Hi there,  

Welcome to FILED Newsletter, your round-up of the latest news and views at the intersection of data privacy, data security, and governance.  

This month:

• Billing services vendor notifies more than 3.4 million individuals of a hacking incident

• US Senate passes another children’s online privacy bill, but will it go the distance in the House?

• In a two-week period, Claude Opus found more high-severity bugs in Firefox than the rest of the world finds in two months.

But first, we all know data governance matters when it comes to AI success. So what’s the plan?

If you only read one thing:  

Introducing FILED Talks

It occurred to me recently that when we say things like, “data governance is core to a successful AI roll-out,” we may now be preaching to the choir. That when we point out the criticality of solving issues with unstructured data, or shadow AI, or that AI governance is now a board-level issue, readers of this newsletter or our other content would be forgiven for thinking, “yes, we know, you mentioned that before, along with half of the internet. But what do we do about it?” If you’re reading this, you know the challenge; you now need the solution.

Putting the pieces together

The truth is, this is a big, complex issue with many facets. There’s establishing an AI governance framework that actually works, there’s ensuring your data is high-quality and trusted, there are regulations like ISO 42001, the EU AI Act, and NIST AI-RMF. Meanwhile, you have to keep up with the state of the art, like agentic AI. For those used to treating data governance as a defensive discipline (preventing bad things from happening), this shift into governance as an enabler involves a steep learning curve.  

So, we decided to start unpacking it, to move beyond the high-level urgency of the problem, which in 2026 we have all accepted, and into the solution.

Next week, we launch FILED Talks, a webinar series helping data governance professionals navigate AI adoption without compromising safety or speed. Every month, we’ll untangle another aspect of the problem, and those with the experience and knowledge of how to navigate this new reality will share their wisdom with the community.

Episode one: The unstructured data playbook

For the inaugural episode of the series, we’re talking about a subject fundamental to generative AI success: unstructured data. The advent of AI is forcing organizations to confront the problem of unstructured data with new urgency. When you don’t know what you have, you can’t ensure your customers’ privacy is respected, your data is protected, and your AI model is being trained on good, compliant, trusted data. ICG Consultants and Advisors principal and owner Melvin D. Baskin talks through the issue with RecordPoint’s Head of Product Joe Pearce. Solving this issue can be a complex challenge for some organizations; this discussion helps make it simple.

Register here and see you there!

Next month: Learn how to increase the ROI from your AI investment by reducing data friction

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🕵️ Privacy & governance

Online age-verification tools are spreading across US for child safety, but adults are being surveilled.

Opinion: "The Privacy ‘Zealots’ Were Right: Ad Tech’s Infrastructure Was Always a Risk".

🔐 Security

🔓Breaches

Billing services vendor Trizetto Provider Solutions notified more than 3.4 million individuals of a hacking incident discovered in October 2025 that investigators have now determined started nearly a year earlier, with threat actors accessing the company's healthcare clients' insurance related data.

Ransomware threat actors tracked as Velvet Tempest are using the ClickFix technique and legitimate Windows utilities to deploy the DonutLoader malware and the CastleRAT backdoor.

🧑⚖️Legal cases, breach fallout, and big picture links

The White House late Friday released President Trump’s Cyber Strategy for America, calling for “unprecedented coordination across government and the private sector,” along with stronger deterrence against cyber adversaries, modernization of federal networks, protection of critical infrastructure, and investment in technologies such as AI and post-quantum cryptography.

How AI assistants are moving the security goalposts.

🤖 AI governance

Over a two-week period in January, Claude Opus 4.6 found more high-severity bugs in Firefox than the rest of the world typically reports in two months, Mozilla said.

The latest from RecordPoint  

📖 Read

RecordPoint is processing more than 15 million data transactions a day, up by 9 million over the past six months, as organizations increase their use of artificial intelligence tools.

RecordPoint has expanded its AI governance capabilities with the launch of the RecordPoint MCP Server, a production-ready solution that exposes governed enterprise data to AI agents and platforms through a standardized, secure protocol without compromising compliance, visibility, or control.

RecordPoint CEO Anthony Woodward explains how agentic AI's independence requires rigorous data governance to prevent costly errors. By prioritizing data classification, access control, lineage and lifecycle management, leaders ensure these reasoning engines act predictably and remain compliant at scale.

🧑‍🏫 Watch (and learn)

Upcoming next week: You may have heard: FILED Talks is our new webinar series helping data governance professionals navigate AI adoption without compromising safety or speed. Every month, we’ll untangle another aspect of the problem, and those with the experience and knowledge of how to navigate this new reality will share their wisdom with the community. The first episode, focused on resolving unstructured data, drops on Wednesday. Register on our site!

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