Data Owner
The business person accountable for a data set: decides who can use it, what quality it must have and approves the rules that affect it.
The Data Owner is the person accountable for a data domain (customers, products, employees, sales…). They are usually a business leader, not an IT person: whoever best knows what the data is used for and what happens if it is wrong.
Typical duties: approve who accesses the data and why; set acceptable quality levels; decide classification (public, internal, confidential) and retention; prioritise fixing issues; and resolve conflicts when two areas use the same data differently.
They do not do the day-to-day work (that is the Data Steward), but theirs is the signature that counts. Without a clear Data Owner nobody decides, and data problems drag on forever.
Read more: Data Governance roles and responsibilities.
Reference: DAMA-DMBOK
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← Back to the glossaryUpdated: October 2026 · Informational content, not legal advice.