Democratizing Our Data: A Manifesto

Lane (coauthor, Where Are All the Good Jobs Going?), a professor of public policy at NYU, delivers a persuasive, evidence-based argument for building a new public data system in order to safeguard privacy and improve the government’s ability to implement policy initiatives. Though “public statistical institutions” such as the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics are currently “hamstrung by excessive legislative control, inertia, lack of incentives, ill-advised budget cuts, and the ‘tyranny of the established,’ ” Lane writes, the data they collect are essential to the functioning of democracy, and, as government institutions, they have more incentive to protect citizens’ data privacy than private corporations do. Her plan for reforming the fragmented and antiquated government systems that currently collect data on demographics, job rates, the impact of tax cuts, etc., centers on the creation of a National Lab for Community Data modeled after the 19th-century Land Grant college system and government-funded research centers such as Los Alamos National Lab, which would “bring together the contributions of researchers, policy makers, and government agencies... while responding to diverse interests.” Though Lane’s road map is geared more toward policy wonks than general interest readers, she writes in straightforward, accessible prose and makes a convincing case for reform. Policymakers will want to take note. (Sept.)