Public Private Partnership and Gov Data Sharing

Last week’s guest lecture by Chris Cruz was a very useful intro into how the government is leveraging technology, data analytics and cloud computing specifically, to better serve the public and manage their central database. In the past, I have been especially interested in, for example, how the private sector players work with government in various different sectors concerning public safety, transportation, and wellbeing, gather consumer data, and report data to the government, some of which could be subsequently shared with the public on government websites.

Data security is of utmost importance to both private and public agencies, and any use of private consumer information is strictly regulated and often anonymized when shared with the public. In private-public partnership programs, therefore, private companies often, requested by local governments, enforce measures against cyber threat by controlling access to customer information, fully anonymizing customers’ sensitive information such as credit card information, and also controlling for access to the apps downloaded on customers’ mobile devices.

The next step in these partnerships is data sharing. The government has the right to request certain metrics regarding product/service usage that would help the city understand urban planning, transportation, and citizen wellbeing, which will then help with future planning and public policy making. This part of the process, which is often negotiated between the private companies and the government, often has a certain playbook that is standard in a certain industry, and the government has expectations with regard to the type of information that it would like to see disclosed.

The last step of the partnership process is data sharing with the general public. Among the information shared with the government, not all will be shared with the public. However, among the ones that do get public exposure, the government aims to have data readily available to the public for educational and awareness purposes. For example, for companies like Uber and lyft in the ride sharing space, the data generated through their services such as total ride number, most popular ride routes, the peak time of ride of the day, and also the average price paid on a particular ride in a certain city district, would be publicly released in order to help the city with better transportation planning, infrastructure placement, and also tourism planning.

I definitely see much more activity in the future in public-private partnerships, as more and more private companies become involved in areas that influence or shed light on public sector practices. The future trend, in my opinion, would be a more and more open and collaborative approach in working with the local governments, syncing technology platforms for more transparent and direct reporting of data, and also more and more secure methods of storing and sharing data.