Data, Dependence, Democracy: Influence in the Secondary Use of Government Information

Abstract

This study examines private sector use of information generated from government operations by focusing on how either or both parties come to mutually depend on such “secondary use” and the resulting impacts on government information, policy, and practice. Viewing government information as a potentially valuable economic resource, the study uses a theoretical framework that predicts that choices in the design of policies may result in unanticipated side effects that create or change incentives for interest groups, mass publics, or government decision-makers, resulting in actions that shape the environment in which the policy is implemented, creating dependencies, providing motivations or disincentives for action, and determining the bounds of the playing field for future policy decisions. To understand these relationships, the study focuses on cases in which one party is dependent and the other is not along with cases where there is mutual dependence. Using qualitative methods, including analysis of 250 documents and 65 interviews with the public and private sector employees involved, it investigates the extent to which the private sector seeks to, and gains, influence on the content, structure, or availability of government data and related policy and practice, how they attempt to exercise such influence, and its effects on the form or nature of the data, access policies and methods, decisions based on the data, or other government practices. The potential mechanisms and impacts of this dependence on secondary use of information are important to the study of government as lack of effective policy and controls to identify and manage its effects may allow the interests in or benefits obtained from this dependence to undermine the effectiveness of government programs, or weaken or divert government from its mission by affecting the nature of the data it uses, its priorities, resource allocation, or facets of its operations in service of these interests or benefits. The principal finding of this research is that such relationships exist and can have effects on practice, including priorities and policy, and to some degree data or its format, as well as introduce market values into public decision-making, impacts that are largely unregulated by government policy.