Data handling is no longer just an IT topic — it's a legal obligation that varies by what data you hold and who it belongs to. Health information, payment data, personal information from various states, and government-controlled information each carry distinct requirements.
For government contractors, the sharpest edge is Controlled Unclassified Information: CUI carries federal handling requirements under NIST SP 800-171 and, increasingly, third-party certification under CMMC. The cost of getting it wrong is contract eligibility itself.
The common thread across every regime is the same: know what data you have, know where it lives, control who can touch it, and be able to prove all three. A data inventory and flow map is the foundation every other obligation builds on.
Treat privacy as an architecture question rather than a paperwork question, and most regulatory requirements become byproducts of a well-run environment.