Identity hygiene is becoming a strategic requirement as enterprises manage more applications, identities and entitlements. The announced integration between SPHERE and SailPoint points to a broader shift in identity governance and administration (IGA): governance decisions must be informed by the quality, accuracy and risk context of the underlying identity data.
Poor identity hygiene creates friction across the entire access lifecycle. Duplicate identities, stale accounts, incomplete ownership data and inconsistent attributes make it harder to approve access accurately. They also undermine certifications, because reviewers cannot reliably determine whether an entitlement belongs to an active worker, a valid service or an abandoned account.
Linking an identity hygiene capability to an IGA platform can connect data quality work to governance workflows. Identity records can be normalised, ownership gaps surfaced and anomalous relationships prioritised for remediation. Instead of treating cleanup as a one-time project, security teams can make it part of joiner, mover and leaver processes.
The value extends to access reviews. A manager needs more than a name and application label: they need confidence that the identity is correctly correlated, the relationship is current and the access matches a defined role. Better data can reduce review fatigue while improving decisions and audit evidence.
Useful measures include orphaned accounts removed, duplicate identities resolved, ownership coverage improved and time taken to remediate risky access. As identity environments become more complex, governance effectiveness will depend not only on policy design but on the integrity of the identity data those policies consume.