Commentary: Public Trust is at Historic Lows — Here’s One Step that May Help Drive Improvements

COMMENTARY

When we travel on an airplane, we implicitly trust the pilot and crew will use data to fly the plane and operate effectively. Coupled with training and countless safeguards for air travel, we develop a level of trust in our safety institutions. Imagine how the country could operate if people had the same level of trust in other democratic institutions — collecting and using data in real-time to make decisions.

A proposed regulation known as the “Public Trust Rule” may have sweeping implications if implemented well, garnering trust from the American public that their data will be protected by the government and potentially resulting in greater trust in government itself. Of course this is ambitious, but when it comes to improving public trust in the United States, it is time for ambition and action.

The proposed regulation was drawn up by career civil servants implementing a bipartisan law known as the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, or Evidence Act. The Evidence Act receives little fanfare, even if it deserves considerable ballyhoo as the most significant advancement in our country’s data laws in a generation. The Evidence Act’s directives accomplish what many Americans expect their government already does well, use data and information to make decisions efficiently and effectively. Unfortunately, as technologies rapidly evolve, there have been challenges in keeping up with the needs to combine, share, and use high-quality data ethically, objectively, accurately, and appropriately to answer important questions facing decision-makers. This has serious consequences for the American people.

The ability to analyze and use data effectively, with appropriately strong privacy safeguards, is an important component of a healthy democracy. Look no further than the U.S. Constitution, which requires a census of the U.S. population to allocate congressional representatives fairly among the states. There are more agencies like the Census Bureau that help us develop insights into our country’s population and economy by collecting data to analyze what public programs work well, when, and where. The Bureau of Economic Analysis produces key economic indicators, such as gross domestic product (GDP). The Bureau of Labor Statistics monitors our country’s workforce conditions, including unemployment levels and salaries by types of jobs. The National Agricultural Statistics Service conducts a census of all our nation’s farms every five years. These and other federal statistical agencies are stewards of restricted, confidential data that are critical to the insights we need as a country, and they realize that the data must be safeguarded.

Building from the Constitution about the importance of data in public governance, the latest effort to improve how we collect, manage, and use data — the proposed Public Trust Rule — takes steps to ensure the Federal Statistical System safeguards information it manages and uses. This information is used in the aggregate for many purposes, such as planning emergency responses, allocating billions in federal funds annually to states and localities, projecting Social Security Fund balances, and tracking energy usage. While several of the concepts incorporated into the draft rule already exist in policy guidance and statute, or the “Principles and Practices” issued by The National Academy of Sciences, the draft rule aims to consolidate and elaborate on concepts.

The Evidence Act articulated the possibility of a collaborative data ecosystem for the federal government that recognizes a broad community of interest and responsibility for federal data, including Chief Data Officers, Chief Information Officers, Evaluation Officers, privacy officials, Performance Improvement Officers, as well as the statistical agencies. The proposed Public Trust Rule attempts to lay out a vision of collaboration and mutual support around federal data in order to assure that statistical data remains objective, accurate, timely and relevant and that the statistical agencies are not subjected to undue political pressure to change the numbers to support whatever party is in power. The rule is open for public comment on acceptable and encouraged practices, including for feedback on important concepts such as:

• The level of independence federal statistical agencies need from parent agencies (e.g., the Census Bureau is in the Commerce Department and the Bureau of Labor Statistics is in the Labor Department). What is needed to ensure these agencies are free from political influences to produce objective, reliable, valid, and credible data?
• The extent to which agencies should be reviewed or audited for maintaining protections, including confidentiality and other procedural mechanisms for protecting confidential statistical data, and who should conduct audits.
• Methods to ensure the statistical agencies can best collaborate with other agencies, Congress, and the public to fulfill fundamental responsibilities.

Institutions that seek out and identify strategies for incorporating meaningful feedback are critical for building trust. Now is the perfect time to provide feedback to the White House and our core data community in the public sector about its central role during the comment period on the proposed Public Trust Rule.

Using data to produce evidence that can help answer the important public questions of our time is paramount for successful democratic institutions. We are hopeful with meaningful public engagement this proposed regulation can help us travel in the right direction for improving public trust in our country.

NANCY POTOK is a former Chief Statistician of the United States, a former Deputy Director of the U.S. Census Bureau, and a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and the American Statistical Association.

NICK HART is President & CEO of the Data Foundation and a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Cross-posted on Medium.