The US government has mandated that “the head of each agency shall designate a nonpolitical appointee employee in the agency as the chief data officer (CDO) of the agency” in a bid to utilise the power of data insights to improve governmental success. The new rules fall under 44 U.S. Code § 3520 - Chief Data Officers which sets out the functions, responsibilities and qualifications of appointed CDOs.
Agency CDOs will report to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the House of Representatives, providing an annual report on the compliance of the agency. These reports need to include information on each requirement that the agency could not carry out and, if applicable, what the agency needs to carry out such requirement in the future. It is hoped that this new approach to data will generate savings, efficiencies and new insights across all aspects of the US government and highlight the US as a leader in data.
Under the Code, any new CDO must demonstrate training and experience in “data management, governance (including creation, application and maintenance of data standards), collection, analysis, protection, use and dissemination, including with respect to any statistical and related techniques to protect and de-identify confidential data”.
Fourteen functions have been identified for CDOs, including:
Furthermore, the CDOs of each agency will have their responsibilities split into three delegations:
It will be interesting to see the evolution of data culture and literacy across the US government following the implementation of CDOs in this manner. It could be the start of a new era of data-driven government and – if success is found swiftly – it could see other nations adopting similar approaches for their own governmental structures.
The full details of the Code can be found here.
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