Data and Information Inventory and Attributes

The Data and Information Inventory governs every named, recognized type of data or information the enterprise produces, consumes, stores, or transmits. A Data and Information type qualifies for a record when it represents a distinct, identifiable class of content that the enterprise has consciously decided to recognize, name, own, and govern — independent of any specific system, database, or file that happens to contain instances of it. Every entry is a Noun Instance of the Data and Information Noun Type, with its own Semantic ID, its own owner, its own sensitivity classification, and its own full set of governance attributes.

A Data and Information Noun Instance is explicitly not a specific record, file, database row, or physical data asset. It is the governed type — the class of content — that specific records and files represent. “Customer Profile” is a Noun Instance. A specific customer record in the CRM database is an instance of the “Customer Profile” type. This distinction between the logical type and the physical instance is the defining architectural principle of this inventory: it governs at the type level, not the instance level. Type-level governance — who owns this class of data, how sensitive is it, where is it authoritative, how long must it be retained — applies universally to every physical instance of the type wherever it appears.

The Data and Information Inventory governs both structured data (relational records, CSV files, JSON payloads, EDI transactions) and unstructured information (PDF documents, images, audio recordings, video files, email bodies). These two forms are governed together under a single Noun Type because the enterprise produces, moves, and must protect both. The distinction between them is captured in the Structure attribute — Structured, Semi-Structured, or Unstructured — rather than in separate inventories, because the governance obligations (ownership, sensitivity, retention, disposal, regulatory compliance) apply to both forms equally.