Data Owner, Steward, and Custodian

A data owner is accountable for decisions within an assigned data scope. A steward maintains meaning and coordinates routine quality work. A custodian operates technical storage and controls. These are responsibilities; job titles and their allocation vary between organizations.

Divide the decision from its implementation

For an order report, a commerce lead can approve the meaning of paid order. An analyst maintains examples and investigates reported discrepancies. An engineer implements the query, access controls, and recovery procedure. One person may hold several roles, but the responsibilities should remain explicit.

If partial refunds appear, the engineer can explain the available fields without silently choosing the business definition. The steward gathers the cases and affected uses; the owner or delegated authority approves the decision.

Give each role a usable scope

Record the data covered, decisions permitted, backup contact, and escalation path. A combined orders-and-support report also needs accountability for the combined result; source owners retain their source responsibilities.

Being an owner does not grant property rights over people's information or authority to bypass organization-wide restrictions. A role works when someone can exercise its responsibilities, not merely when a team name appears in a catalog.

Reference: UK Government: Data ownership model.