Data and government transparency in the Trump era - Can data-driven technologies help?
Similarly, those technologies and others can reveal geographic data about where emails were sent and whether or not they were done so in accordance to mandates about which areas required the usage of departmental servers. Of particular importance is the deployment of data technologies in determining, and possibly even recovering, facets of deleted emails, since deleted data still contains remnants of previous records until they are rewritten with subsequent data. By strengthening adherence to public policy, governance and security measures, data-driven practices provide an integral means of pursuing illicit activity in the public sector, enhancing transparency by uncovering such actions and simultaneously deterring future reoccurrences.
Security breaches
The most controversial means by which data technologies can impact governmental transparency is via security breaches, a nebulous, gray area in which ethical and unethical behavior seamlessly merge or vanish. In many ways, data breaches represent the apex of transparency because they can reveal actions that may otherwise remain unknown. The Panama Papers revelation (in which numerous governmental figures were linked to offshore accounts, some of which likely involved public sector funding) personifies those characteristics of breaches while also showcasing the investigative influence of data technologies. Breaches are based upon the security intrusions in which data is pilfered by unauthorized personnel, whether external hackers or autonomously operating internal personnel. Graph database technology was instrumental in linking together the numerous actors in that drama, integrating and pinpointing relevant data across continents, countries and industries to present an overarching view of the full extent of the illegal behavior involved.
Moreover, the Panama Papers use case accentuates a critical reality regarding the value of data technologies in producing transparency in the public sector, one which directly correlates to the aforementioned Clinton example. Subsequent investigative reports into the former indicate numerous lax security measures in the IT infrastructure of the Panamanian law firm breached. Similarly, there is evidence that the unintended consequences of Clinton’s private email server deployment included attempts to breach her office via phishing attacks. In the first example, insufficient security was exploited to attain valued data; in the latter, it was a consequence of non-compliance with data policies. Each use case illustrates the fundamental relationship between data breaches, remiss security and public sector transparency, despite the intention to flout that transparency.
The danger in attempting to improve public sector transparency with security breaches supersedes the obviously risky legal and ethical repercussions. Both boundaries were clearly transgressed in the data theft of the Panama Papers, although the objective was to expose additional behavior that transcended those same boundaries in efforts to heighten government transparency and, ultimately, its accountability to the people—a practical end. However, the greater jeopardy lies in the compromise of safety involved in data breaches, which are routinely used to gain access to personally identifiable information for nefarious purposes. The infiltration of Democratic and Republican email servers by Russian hackers in the months preceding the recent presidential election are poignant reminders of the jeopardy security breaches create and the subjective realms of right and wrong they place at the fingertips of those committing such crimes. Nonetheless, security breaches may represent a final resort for effecting transparency in instances in which it is necessary for the public sector.
Open data
The counterpoint to the controversial machinations involved in security breaches is the decidedly altruistic impact of open data—which perhaps becomes most viable in the form of linked open data. Open data is officially sanctioned by governments for any societal use and proves either a significant starting or ending point for the synthesis of multitudes of sources to positively impact society. With use cases already spanning road construction throughout Europe, biological research regarding the Zika virus and adherence to public eatery sanitization standards in New York, public open data could very well provide the means to reinforce governmental transparency.
Open data’s core value proposition in relation to public sector transparency revolves around its ability to socialize datasets of merit to the general populace. Like most big data policies, its worth is based in its aggregation with additional sources stemming from any variety of contemporary social media sources, as well as proprietary in-house sources. The Open Data Project at data.gov contains categories of open data for local governments, public safety and other salient verticals that can inform any issues apropos to current public policy. Furthermore, when linked with a semantic standards-based approach, those data enable an invaluable degree of relationship contextualization for the dense data points already identified in the public-sector transparency use cases involving Clinton and the Panama Papers. Such technologies facilitate an expedience of data exchange critical to aggregating big data that could have drastically accelerated the investigation into the latter, expediting the analytics response times while involving even more sources for a richer analysis.
Public policy limitations
Data’s impact upon the public sector mirrors the rapid advance of its overall effect upon contemporary society. However, their solidification as a fourth means of effecting checks and balances throughout the government is tempered by the public policies they reinforce. Data technologies are not the agents, but the means of rectifying and spotlighting lapses in transparency—both providing the medium for creating transparency and the glaring need for it with the most intimate details. But they are only as worthy as the policies they support. The effectiveness of public open data in protecting transparency relies on the underlying data sources (and their relevance to current administration issues) exposed.
The ability of data governance procedures to identify provenance and the particulars of user actions is balanced by the policies they’re supposed to corroborate. The relevance of social media monitoring of public sector employees ultimately rests on the data they choose to reveal. The lone wildcard—egregiously illegal, highly unethical and of mercurial effectiveness—found in security breaches potentially poses more risks than it presents value. Thus, data-centered technologies are not one of the “bosses” of checks and balances but merely an underboss, an obdurate enforcer of the various laws and ethics which abound within the private sector and serve as the basis for the need for transparency.
But their presence is formidable and growing daily.