IBM is unveiling IBM Optim Data Redaction and a technology preview program for IBM InfoSphere Business Information Monitor.

Based on work from IBM Research and technology gained during the acquisition of Guardium, InfoSphere Business Monitor tracks the quality and flow of an organisation's information and provides real-time alerts of potential flaws.

For example, if a health insurance company was analysing profit margins across different product lines (individual, group, HMO, Medicare, etc.), decision makers would immediately be alerted when a data feed from a specific geography was not successfully integrated.

Also based on work from IBM Research, Optim Data Redaction protects an organisation's information by automatically recognising and removing sensitive content from documents and forms. For example, a customer's credit scores in a loan document could be hidden from an office clerk, while still being visible to a loan officer.

As information flows through an organisation, there are many points at which disruptions in quality, protection and management can occur. Information governance provides the framework to ensure that information can be trusted and creates a solid foundation upon which other technologies can be based.

Breakdowns in information flow and accuracy lead to bad business decisions and compliance failures. The health of an organisation's information depends on understanding the dependencies between various information assets like databases, content repositories, reports, and business applications.

InfoSphere Business Information Monitor automatically detects the connections and relationship between data sources and reports ensuring that when something goes wrong in one area users are notified of all possible implications.

IBM Optim Data Redaction helps reduces an organisation's risk by removing sensitive data without impacting the organisation's ability to use the information. Optim Data Redaction also allows organisations to balance the speed of automated extraction with the precision of human review making it easy to ensure the right information stays private.

Optim Data Redaction is expected to be available in March. A technology preview program for InfoSphere Business Information Monitor is expected to open in March.