Data hoarding may have financial and security consequences – Computer World

As of January 2025, 144 countries now have data privacy and protection regulations and continue to carry out actions to regulate artificial intelligence, and regulatory compliance has become the primary reason for changing end-of-life data management practices. It is cited by 38% of global organizations. Sustainability, including sustainability driven by regulatory requirements, accounts for 34% of the number of shutdowns.

In addition, only 21% of enterprise data are tagged and classified, making it difficult to distinguish redundant, outdated or trivial, and therefore difficult to remove, the survey said. Many organizations retain too much data, and only 53% of respondents say that data is no longer needed to destroy it.

There is good news, too. The survey found that 58% of businesses have increased their investments in data privacy and protection over the past year, noting that there is no single investment trigger: “For most people, this is new rules, accumulation of new technologies, and expectations for responsible data and hardware disposal.”