Data is seen by many as the most lucrative commodity of the new global economy. Data analytics and self-teaching algorithms are projected to continue to disrupt every imaginable market and to create new ones. Many organisations are struggling to integrate big data analytics into their operations. New data governance challenges could be tackled through adherence to a data governance standard. There is currently no standard in place to provide guidance on the deployment of corporate data policies to manage ethics, transparency and trust in data value chains. This policy brief proposes issues that should be covered in the proposed standard.