Democratizing Our Data: A Manifesto

by Julia Lane

A wake-up call for America to create a new framework for democratizing data. Public data are foundational to our democratic system. People need consistently high-quality information from trustworthy sources. In the new economy, wealth is generated by access to data; government's job is to democratize the data playing field. Yet data produced by the American government are getting worse and costing more. In Democratizing Our Data , Julia Lane argues that good data are essential for democracy. Her book is a wake-up call to America to fix its broken public data system. Lane argues that we must rethink ways to democratize data; there are successful models to follow and new legislation that can help effect change. The private sector's data revolution—which creates new types of data and new measurements to build machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms—can be mirrored by a public sector data revolution characterized by attention to counting all who should be counted, measuring what should be measured, and protecting privacy and confidentiality. Just as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook have led the world in the use of data for profit, the United States can show the world how to produce data for the public good.   Lane calls for a more automated, transparent, and accountable framework for creating high-quality public data that would empower citizens and inspire the workforce that serves them. And she outlines an organizational model that has the potential to make data more accessible and useful. As she says, failure to act threatens our democracy.

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, Politics

192 pages, Hardcover

Published September 1, 2020

Reviews

[Harald G. · Rating 2 out of 5]

A proposal to fix the sad state of government statistics in the US.
Many of the problems discussed are related to relying on surveys (with dropping response rates), high cost of collecting data and low trust in government.

I read this book in order to get fresh ideas how to improve collection and dissemination of government statistics. However I found few novel ideas. In my part of the world (i.e.Nordic countries) we solved most of the statistical problems the book seeks to address decades ago simply by improving government registers to near 100% coverage, nearly always up to date. This makes most of the costly surveys and censuses the US rely on superfluous. We get much more reliable data at a lower cost.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

***I was granted ARC of this via Netgalley from the publisher.***

Today, we are generating more data than ever before. How the government collects data and puts it to use is important. In the book, Democratizing Our Data: A Manifesto by Julia Lane examines the current state of how the government collects data and how it can change in the future for the better. The author argues that the government now does not have the right tools to collect data in an accurate and timely way. Since decisions that impact policy are made with this data, the author argues that the government should be innovative in the way it collects data and make it more efficient while protecting the privacy of the people it has collected data on. I think that the author has presented a good argument and also presents a possible answer to the problem. There are times when the author goes over the same material again that can bog down the reading a little but otherwise a good read. I would recommend this to anyone interested in data science.

Rating: 4/5 stars. Would recommend to a friend.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only reason I gave this book 2 stars instead of 1 is because it exposed me to an issue I was unaware of. Otherwise, it is a self-promoting work that spends half the time focused on the author’s contributions to the issue, rather than the actual problem. This should have been a white paper, not a book. It’s a product of an egotistical author that robbed me of 4 hours of life I’ll never get back.

[Amr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned about research funding models, funding sources, funding decisions, as well as about the slow and resistant nature of federal statistical agencies like the Census Bureau, the latency in their results, and growing pressure to innovate (this pressure comes mostly from better statistics being produced by market-driven businesses like Google, Facebook, Twitter etc.)

[Christophe Bousquet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book about why publicly available data should of the highest quality while preserving privacy and what is needed to achieve this.
Drawbacks: slightly repetitive and (for non-US citizens/residents) highly US-centered

[Kassandra Neiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts with strong observations in the introduction about the current state of the federal data and statistics systems, but these same observations are continually repeated throughout the book without much additional insight.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads like a grant proposal and has plenty of jargon, so I'm not sure I'm the intended audience. However, she's not wrong about the way forward.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Far more focused on the details specific to the USA's federal government than I had hoped. Of limited interest to anyone except Americans.

[Abbey]

Recommended by Josh

[Conlon Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

When you see "manifesto" in the ttile of a book, run the other way.

Julia was a colleague and well-meaning. And I agree with her that we should "democratize" our data. Collect and publish public data in readily consumable formats for whatever use the people of the country might have.

To do otherwise is to cheat the people and generate suspicion. It's not a politcal issue (as many frame it). Rather, it's a "good governance" issue, a concept that went out the window in American decvades ago as partisan politics became a national parlor game.