1. Goals of Government ICT Strategy
2. Driving more value from government data
Some of the more common goals in relation to engaging consumers of government data are as follows:
- Provision of easier access to government services and information
- Unlocking government data and working to innovate and build new solutions
- Providing interoperable systems allowing easier interaction with government
2.1 Access to unit record data, rather than aggregated data or predefined reports
In general, data made available both within government and
with citizens is either aggregated data, or pre-defined reports. Certainly, these reports and summary data are
highly valuable.
However, as statistics providers around the world know
only too well, the same piece of data can mean something different to each of
their varied stakeholders. To the subject, it is a detail about their private
life; to the individual, a key to learning about their community and beyond; to
the media, it is a small component of a story; for analysts, it combines with
millions of similar records to provide insight about our community and to
government agencies it helps plan for future services.
For government agencies collecting enormous
quantities of data, the mission is to get information to those varied audiences
in a way that gives the most value.
To fully unlock government data and harness its full potential, it is important to enable end-users
to have access to the unit record data (the individual records of information)
via the web. This enables end-users anywhere
to ask any question of the data through browser-based ad-hoc self-service query
and answer, rather than being limited to predefined summary information and
views.
2.1.1. Confidentiality
In order to provide access to unit record data,
government agencies need to protect subjects of that data by preventing
breaches of confidentiality. Merely anonymising
unit record data is insufficient, leaving open the possibility of calculating
identity from aggregated data and failing to entirely protect the privacy of
individuals.
In our view meeting the challenge of confidentiality
should never be an optional extra; rather, we see it as an essential that is
integrated in the software platform. The critical task of protecting privacy is
far too important to leave to manual control when human error can be
catastrophic both for the government agencies and their end-users. Aside from
the financially costly legal outcome, the damage to public confidence and
credibility can be near-impossible to repair.
Important methods of confidentialisation include cell disturbance via random rounding or perturbation, or suppression of sensitive data cells. In implementing this confidentialisation, it is important to ensure that sensitive information remains private, while retaining data utility.
Other controls that need to be considered include group
and individual level user access controls that allow for easily administered
and robust disclosure control options.
To maximise value of the data, permission-based access
control, confidentialised tabulation on the fly and customised confidentiality
routines should be considered to provide the breadth of functionality required
of government agencies sharing their data.
2.1.2. Interactive,
intuitive, programming-free and shareable analysis
In order to make informed decisions from vast volumes of
data, it is important that end-users have access to powerful interactive,
programming-free analytics software tools that are intuitive and require little
to no training to use.
These tools should support motion charts, maps and other
interactive visualisations enabling users to access and compare a wealth of
information that is sourced from unit record data and aggregated to provide
readily understood insights. The tools should also allow users to provide
commentary within the tool and group together these images, charts, maps and
interactive visualisations into dynamic and interactive reports that can be embedded into websites
easily or shared via web links.
For government agencies and other data providers, these
tools should provide the option to have cloud-based management and control and
automate much of the data production process so that there is more likelihood
of data published being up-to-date and requiring less effort to produce. This
allows agencies to create pre-loaded government datasets that are easy to
access for their users.
Furthermore, consideration should also be given to
allowing users to provide feedback on the tool, the data or the insights they
create via a community where users, researchers, data owners and developers can
share information. Coupling this with usage tracking software will ensure that
a well-monitored and highly valuable feedback loop is created that allows a
community driven approach to the continual improvement of government agency’s
online data dissemination portals.
3.1. Inter-agency sharing
The considerations identified above in relation to sharing
of unit record data apply equally to sharing between government agencies, as it
does to sharing with citizens.
However, it is important to consider the specific needs of
inter-government agency data sharing.
Creating a software platform that supports easy exchange of unit record information
between agencies, avoids the costs associated with multiple handling of the
same data by different agencies, with the added advantage of access to the full
unit record data.
To achieve this, the government ICT Strategy's should give consideration
to:
- An inter-operable system that provides a robust, secure and high performance environment
- Businesses processes underpinning the data sharing, and automation of these processes; and
- The ease with which agencies can publish data for sharing with other agencies
3.1.1. Inter-operable Platform
In order to optimise the value of data use across government agencies, it is important to have an inter-operable platform that allows robust, secure, high-performance data exchange and communication between agencies, allowing data and insights to be easily shared across various government agencies.
End user Benefits
An inter-operable platform as identified above, gives end
users the following benefits:
- Common interfaces and tools provide users with a familiarity with how to obtain and extract relevant information;
- Users will be able to obtain more data on a more timely basis because inter-operable systems reduce the time taken by agencies to release data;
- Feedback mechanisms with role based security allows citizens, other government agencies and government data providers to interact with the data and share their insights;
- Improved accessibility to a broader range of data without duplication from different sources leads to more informed decision-making.
From the agency perspective, an inter-operable platform:
- Reduces duplication in data collection across agencies and enables implementation of a single source of truth;
- Provides easier transfer of data between government agencies whether federal, state or local, enabling better utilisation of existing data;
- Enables reduced costs of maintenance, improved security and easier knowledge transfer from agency to agency through common platform;
- Provides economies of scale bargain power through multi-agency deals.
4. Conclusion
“Knowledge is power.” Sir Francis Bacon, 1597
Government agencies should, if they aren't already doing so, recognise the
value of open data, and the importance of unlocking data and
working with citizens and business to innovate and build new solutions.
Execution of this strategy will deliver numerous benefits:
- With robust confidentiality systems in place, agencies will have the confidence to open up their unit record data, to other government agencies and citizens. There are a few notable absentees from current Data.Gov website lists who could be encouraged to open their data if privacy could be assured.
- Easy, intuitive, self-service ad-hoc query and answer of the vast volumes of data, together with shared feedback, provides the opportunity for new insights to be unearthed which in turn could deliver untold benefits to society.
- Common platform with standard data exchange mechanisms and best practice data management methodology, will enable implementation of solutions across different agencies quickly and at lower cost, and avoid duplication of effort and costs associated with data collection.
Government agencies that can deliver this strategy, and
create data driven economy in their jurisdictions will be the envy of all around
the world.
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