Marketers care about privacy management primarily as it relates to customer data, but privacy management overlaps with a broader category of governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) systems that cover many data types. Like privacy systems (and Customer Data Platforms), GRC systems require an inventory of existing customer data, including systems, data elements within each system, and uses for each element. These inventories form the foundation for functions including risk assessments, security, process documentation, responses to consumer data requests, and compliance monitoring.
Having a single inventory would be ideal. But each application needs the inventory to be presented in its own way. One reason so many different systems gather their own data inventories is that each is limited to its own type of presentation.
