ActiveNav today announced its participation in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) project on data classification practices, documented in NIST Special Publication (SP) 1800-39, Data Classification Practices (Initial Public Draft), published February 12, 2026. The draft is open for public comment through March 30, 2026.

The NCCoE practice guide focuses on how organizations can discover, identify, and label unstructured data using commercially available technologies, with an emphasis on applying repeatable methods that support governance, security, and operational decision-making.

ActiveNav is listed among the project’s collaborating vendors, and the draft publication includes an “ActiveNav Demonstration” section describing the use of ActiveNav technology within the project’s demonstration environment.

“Data classification only matters if it holds up in the real world across messy repositories, inconsistent naming, and content that was never designed for governance,” said Peter Baumann, Founder and CEO of ActiveNav. “We’re proud to have contributed to this NCCoE effort and to see practical guidance like this made available to the community. For legal and regulated teams, the ability to consistently identify sensitive data and drive defensible decisions is no longer optional.”

“As a solutions team, we spend our time turning ‘we think it’s in there somewhere’ into clear answers: what data exists, where it lives, and what risk it carries,” said Mark Evans, Director of Solutions Engineering at ActiveNav. “The NIST NCCoE guide reflects the kind of structured, step-by-step approach organizations need to make data classification actionable at scale.”

Why this matters for legal teams

Law firms and corporate legal departments continue to face rising pressure to reduce data exposure and improve governance across file shares, collaboration platforms, and legacy content. Practical classification methods help teams identify sensitive data patterns, prioritize remediation, support policy enforcement, and strengthen defensibility.

How to comment on the draft

NIST SP 1800-39 (Data Classification Practices, Initial Public Draft) is open for public comment through March 30, 2026. Organizations and practitioners are encouraged to review the draft and submit feedback during the comment period.

About ActiveNav

ActiveNav provides software that helps legal organizations discover, classify, and manage unstructured data at scale. ActiveNav Cloud supports IT, information governance, compliance, privacy, security, and knowledge management initiatives by enabling organizations to inventory data across repositories, identify risk hotspots, prioritize remediation, and generate documentation that supports defensible decisions.

Disclaimer: Identification of products or vendors in this NIST/NCCoE publication is not an endorsement or recommendation by NIST or NCCoE.