Ghost Dependencies: Cataloging Is Not Governance

Abstract: Organizations facing runaway data-vendor costs typically respond by buying a data catalog. While necessary, catalogs record structural connections rather than why those connections exist, since when, under which license, or who may authorize change. This practitioner essay introduces ghost dependencies—connections that remain technically active but lack current business justification, ownership, licensing clarity, or verified criticality—and their mirror image, hidden dependencies. Focusing on market data feeds in financial services as an illustrative case, the essay argues that safe feed retirement requires seven kinds of evidence, including effective-dated lineage and usage observed across the full consumption cycle. However, evidence completeness never by itself authorizes retirement: a named decision-maker must resolve, accept, defer, or reject the residual risk. Because data programs that produce evidence rather than decisions tend to lose executive commitment, the essay offers a playbook for resource-constrained data leads built around a decision log, the contract-renewal calendar, and a shift in the unit of output from documents to decisions. Keywords: data governance; data catalog; data lineage; temporal lineage; market data; vendor rationalization; metadata management; decision rights; ghost dependencies