Data is considered as an asset to the enterprise and data security simply means ensuring that enterprise data is not compromised and that access to it is suitably controlled.

The purpose of the Data Security diagram is to depict which actor (person, organization, or system) can access which enterprise data. This relationship can be shown in a matrix form between two objects or can be shown as a mapping.

The diagram can also be used to demonstrate compliance with data privacy laws and other applicable regulations (HIPAA, SOX, etc). This diagram should also consider any trust implications where an enterprise's partners or other parties may have access to the company's systems, such as an outsourced situation where information may be managed by other people and may even be hosted in a different country.