Data-fueled government: Breaking down silos with turbo-charged data

I love data. I've always worked with data. Today, I'd like to offer a call to arms: government can and should make better use of data to deliver delightful service experiences.

Carl Sagan wrote that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Many of us hopeful people who work in and around government are wont to make extraordinary claims. Government can design great services around life events. Technology can help advance noble objectives, like equity and inclusion. Service reform can be inclusive and sustainable. Government can earn trust, today and everyday.

Data matters a lot in this context. That's why I was so pleased to work with the Deloitte Center for Government Insights to flesh out a perspective on what data can and should look like in a government service context. Our full article is available here .

Key insights below. Read on!

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We've all heard it: data has been heralded as the oil of 21st century. This phrase was originally coined by Clive Humby, a British mathematician and data science entrepreneur back in 2006. The idea holds more merit not just because data has incredible economic value. It's also fueling government, enabling agencies and government leaders to provide better services and respond more effectively during crisis.?

Historically, governments often faced challenges accessing the right data because they were poorly equipped to handle data or simply didn’t have access to it due to organizational silos. COVID-19 changed everything. Government agencies increasingly adopted data-centric technologies.

New opportunities

Necessity is the mother of invention, right? Sure enough, we saw governments turn to tools like AI and cloud. They shared more data and thought critically about enablers like privacy and security to address the unprecedented set of problems born from the pandemic. In Rhode Island, for instance, adopting cloud services increased the state’s capacity to handle simultaneous unemployment insurance calls from 75 to 2,000 (footnote 1).

With the proper tools, governments began integrating datasets, applications, and devices to facilitate internal and external interactions. For example, a machine learning model and open data were used to identify participants for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine trials (footnote 2).

Tough challenges

So Covid-19 helped bring data to the mainstage. Great! But unprecedented use of data in government also brought new challenges.

Governments made use of contact tracing as a key strategy for reducing virus transmission. Around the world, they collaborated with external organizations to create the apps and other means to make contact tracing possible. But soon after deployment, privacy concerns emerged as these apps captured a lot of personally identifiable information (PII). There were also inconsistencies in data collection and storage policies.

In response, governments began taking action to develop necessary policies to protect data and citizens’ privacy. Italy’s data protection authority, Garante, for instance, adopted a measure outlining how the nation’s authorities would balance the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation with the need for tracing data. Cool, eh?

Towards sustainable reform: call your local Chief Data Officer

One strategy that we saw help advance data in government is maturing the role of the Chief Data Officer (CDO). The need to adopt data technologies and policies in response to COVID-19 thrust the CDO into the spotlight. In doing so, it helped clarify the role and solidify its importance. Continued emphasis on the CDO will enable government to tap into the value of shared data going forward.

What have the last couple of years taught us about data in government? Governments should focus on three areas to ensure they can use shared data and be crisis ready:

1. Keep trucking: maintain the data-centric approach established in response to COVID-19. This approach can provide great value to constituents and improve performance.
2. Go mano a mano with the risks: continue to develop proactive policies on data privacy and security. As with economic policy, data policy should evolve based on how information is used.
3. Avengers assemble! Increase the CDO’s value. Continue to support and develop the CDO role to drive the power of shared data.

What do you think? For more insights like these, read the Deloitte Insights article ‘Data-fueled government ’ and explore the 2022 Government Trends report .

#GovTrends2022

Footnotes

1. Amazon, “The cloud helps Rhode Island manage an unprecedented surge in UI claims ,”?Governing, April 24, 2020.
2. Kerri Reynolds, “COVID-19 increased use of AI. Here’s why it’s here to stay ,” World Economic Forum, February 24, 2021; Terri Park, “Behind Covid-19 vaccine development ,” MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, May 18, 2021.