14. The computer program product of claim 10 , wherein the computer readable program causes the data processing system to retrieve search results of the security search by gathering characteristic information associated with the at least one item of information, wherein the characteristic information comprises at least one of an identity of the at least one item of information, the search criteria met by the at least one item of information, or information identifying a protection mechanism currently applied to the at least one item of information.
14. The computer program product of claim 10 , wherein the computer readable program causes the data processing system to retrieve search results of the security search by gathering characteristic information associated with the at least one item of information, wherein the characteristic information comprises at least one of an identity of the at least one item of information, the search criteria met by the at least one item of information, or information identifying a protection mechanism currently applied to the at least one item of information. 15. The computer program product of claim 14 , wherein the computer readable program causes the data processing system to analyze the search results to determine if the at least one item of information meets security policy compliance requirements by: identifying one or more security policies in a security policy database that are to be applied to the at least one item of information based on the characteristic information gathered for the at least one item of information.