What Is Data Compliance? A Guide to Regulatory Data Management

People often lump compliance and security together, but they’re not the same thing. Security is the act of defending systems by encrypting traffic, patching servers, or monitoring networks. Compliance is the framework that proves those defenses meet outside requirements.

Take the example of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0, released in 2024. Security lives in the Protect, Detect, and Respond categories, while compliance lives in the new Govern function, that is, policies, oversight, and the evidence trail auditors want to see.

There’s overlap, of course. Encryption helps both. So, perform access controls and logging. However, compliance pushes us further: It asks whether we have policies for retention, deletion, and vendor risk, and whether we can show an auditor that we follow them. That extra layer is what transforms good practices into legal proof.

Some still see compliance as a chore. The reality is it’s a business enabler.

When the SEC’s cybersecurity rule went live in 2023, public companies suddenly had to disclose material breaches within four business days. Around the same time, the FTC’s Safeguards Rule forced non-bank financial institutions to notify the FTC within 30 days of certain breaches. If your systems weren’t already aligned with these rules, you risked fines, lawsuits, and brand damage.

The financial impact is sobering. Verizon’s 2025 DBIR found that ransomware accounted for 75% of system-intrusion breaches. For healthcare, the Change Healthcare attack in 2024 cost its parent company $2.3–2.45 billion in a single year. Even in the UK, the Synnovis ransomware attack forced hospitals to delay thousands of procedures and drained $41.5 million.

But it’s not all downsides. Compliance builds trust with customers and partners. It shortens sales cycles by checking boxes on vendor questionnaires. It makes incident response smoother because you’ve already built a disclosure playbook. In many cases, compliance is the ticket to enter regulated markets at all.

The regulatory map is crowded, but a few frameworks stand out across industries.

• Privacy laws: The EU’s GDPR set the tone, followed by California’s CPRA. Now, more than 20 U.S. states have comprehensive privacy laws as of 2025, each with its own rules about consent, rights requests, and penalties.
• Security frameworks: ISO/IEC 27001:2022 updated its control sets, with a transition deadline of October 31, 2025. The NIST CSF 2.0 added its Govern function, giving risk oversight equal weight with detection and response.
• Sector rules: PCI DSS v4.0.1, released in 2024, came with new requirements early this year. Healthcare organizations face HIPAA, and in 2024, HHS added voluntary Cybersecurity Performance Goals that are becoming de facto expectations. Public companies deal with SOX for financial reporting.
• U.S. federal contracts: NIST SP 800-171 Rev.3 landed in May 2024, raising the bar for protecting controlled unclassified information.
• EU mandates: The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) became enforceable early this year for financial services, while NIS2 widened incident-reporting obligations across critical industries in 2024.
• Cross-border transfers: The EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework adequacy decision is still the go-to mechanism for transatlantic data flows, though firms often back it with Standard Contractual Clauses.

Compliance rests on a set of practices that guide how data is handled end-to-end.

Discover and Map Your Data

GDPR’s principle of minimization says you should collect only what you need. However, mapping also helps you see where sensitive fields travel across apps and vendors.

Protection and Monitoring

PCI DSS requires strong access controls and log retention. ISO 27001 expects a risk-based control framework. For compliance, you need alerts, reports, and evidence that they run.

Retention and Deletion

Regulations don’t just demand you keep data safe; they often require you to erase it after a set time. The NIST SP 800-88 Rev.1 guidelines explain how to sanitize media securely, whether by clearing, purging, or destroying it. Auditors will ask for proof that you followed such a process.

Governance

The NIST CSF 2.0’s Govern function stresses assigning owners, writing policies, and linking risk to business objectives. Without governance, compliance collapses into ad hoc fixes.

If compliance were simple, every company would ace audits. The truth is that most struggle.

Regulations evolve constantly. PCI DSS 4.0.1 and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 both have 2025 deadlines that force organizations to adapt. Privacy laws keep multiplying at the state level.

Events in the real world can also reset the bar. The Synnovis ransomware in 2024 was an example of one supplier failure leading to cascading national delays in healthcare. Regulators urged stronger oversight of third parties as a response.

Cross-border compliance is still messy. The EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF) helps, but lawsuits keep the ground shifting. Many firms fall back on contracts and transfer assessments just to stay safe.

Resources add pressure. HITRUST CSF v11 simplified reviews, yet compliance still takes skilled people, steady funding, and ongoing oversight. Smaller teams often feel the strain.

The real struggle is balance: meeting rules without losing focus on daily operations.

This is where working with a managed service provider makes sense. Compliance is too big to tackle alone, and MSPs bring a combination of platforms, expertise, and evidence.

First, MSPs enable you to “inherit” controls, meaning that if the provider is already SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, or PCI compliant, you can use their existing compliance infrastructure as your own instead of starting your own compliance infrastructure from scratch.

Second, they supply the evidence packs that auditors demand. These include logs, recovery test results, copies of compliance attestations, and even Business Associate Agreements for HIPAA.

Third, MSPs bring testing and cadence. PCI DSS, HIPAA, and NIST all stress ongoing monitoring. An MSP can schedule quarterly access reviews, annual tabletop exercises, or immutable restore drills. That way, you don’t scramble when an auditor asks for proof.

Finally, MSPs help with cross-border transfers and contracts. They keep up with frameworks like the EU–U.S. DPF and can advise on Standard Contractual Clauses or vendor due diligence.

At OTAVA, compliance is woven into our cloud, backup, and disaster recovery platforms.

We build solutions on audited infrastructure, including SOC reports, ISO 27001 certification, HIPAA-ready services with BAAs, and PCI DSS hosting environments. When our clients work in healthcare or payments, they don’t have to reinvent the wheel; they inherit controls from us.

Our disaster recovery and backup services use immutability and recovery testing to meet PCI and healthcare standards. We document those drills so clients have evidence for their auditors.

We also follow the latest regulatory cues, like the HHS Cybersecurity Performance Goals for healthcare and the PCI DSS v4.0.1 requirements for payment environments.

And we’re upfront about shared responsibility. We cover the infrastructure, attestations, monitoring, and recovery frameworks. Our clients handle user access, data entry practices, and internal policies. Together, that creates a compliance foundation that stands up under scrutiny.

Most importantly, we see compliance as a partnership. We provide not just technology but guidance, helping clients map their requirements, prioritize fixes, and build systems that are both audit-ready and resilient.

Speak with us today to see where you stand and how we can build a stronger, audit-ready foundation together.