Page 63 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 1

IPS57 Joanne H.

Building and maintaining trust in today’s data
landscape
Joanne Hillermann
Statistical Data Integration Division
Australian Bureau of Statistics

Abstract
The availability of big data to National Statistical Offices (NSOs) and their
innovative use has created opportunities to enhance the quality of existing
statistical series, often at lower cost; as well as enable new insights into long
standing public policy questions, primarily by combining big data from various
sources, including with Population Census data. The opportunities presented
by big data to NSOs also come with many challenges, particularly at a time
when the public’s trust in the ability of public and private institutions to keep
their data safe is relatively low. This paper briefly discusses the opportunities
of big data in the Australian context and then primarily focuses on the need
for NSOs to build and maintain trust in the current data landscape. Trust in
data use, which is sometimes referred to as “social licence”, is defined and
examined through multiple lenses. A framework for building and maintaining
trust is also presented for use by NSOs. The framework considers a number of
elements, including transparency and communication, engaging with
providers, the role of expert advisors, privacy, and risk management. This
paper concludes with an outline of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS)
experiences developing this framework and plans to operationalise.

Keywords
Social license; Big data; Data integration

1. Introduction
The Australian Government Pubic Data Policy Statement declares that
“data held by the Australian Government is a strategic national resource that
holds considerable value for growing the economy, improving service delivery
1
and transforming policy outcomes for the Nation”.
As data volumes are growing exponentially, so too is the potential value of
this data. Effectively harnessing the value of data is vital to remain competitive
in the global, digital economy.

1 Australian Government Public Data Policy Statement.
https://www.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/austgovtpublicdatapolicystatement1.
pdf (Link as of 24/04/2019.)

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