Public services and the public's data

Who to trust? Public services trusted on data, but what type of data?

Who do you trust? Public esteem for politicians is low and falling. Many of us trust neither their motives nor their competence. Add to this a succession of widely publicised failures to keep personal data secure, and it would hardly be surprising if citizens wanted their data kept out of public hands to the greatest possible extent. But polling commissioned by the 2020 Public Services Trust suggests that the public's position is more equivocal than an often shrill public debate about data and data sharing might suggest.

Polling was commissioned as part of the Trust's research into how technology might transform the planning and delivery of public services. Our underlying assumption is that technology - particularly information technology - can be a powerful tool to improve public sector productivity, just as it has improved productivity in the private sector through better data capture and analysis. More importantly, we believe that advances in technology have the potential to move control away from the state and towards citizens. However, many of those who oppose more data sharing across the public sector believe that far from empowering the citizen, ceding more personal data to public services would shift power away from the citizen and towards the state to an unwelcome, even dangerous degree.

81 percent of the public think that public services already hold a ‘great' or ‘fair amount' of their personal data; and two thirds think that public services share this data with other public services. Our polling did not ask whether the public were content or satisfied with this state of affairs, but did explore whether they would be happier or less happy if such data was in the hands of private business or third sector organisations. Asked who they would trust most with information that might identify them personally, 65 per cent chose public services, in comparison with six per cent expressing a preference for private companies, and five per cent for charities. The suggestion that individuals' NHS records might be held by private companies such as Google was met with concern amongst 76 per cent of people surveyed.

Clearly then, public services, as opposed to politicians and government, are relatively well regarded as custodians of our personal information. It is the potential movement of that information that most still find unacceptable. In most situations a majority of the public feel that data sharing between public services should only take place with their prior consent, even when it is suggested that they might benefit from better join-up between services. However, where the public believe that data sharing could prevent fraud or other crime, they are more prepared to drop the requirement for consent. For example, 52 per cent think that it should be possible for local education authorities to pass details of truanting children to the police so they know who is at risk of drifting into crime.

Too much of the public debate about data sharing across public services has been framed in black and white terms of for or against. If we are to enjoy the benefits that technology could bring, the public needs to be engaged in a detailed conversation about what they expect from different services, the nature of the data that should be held, and the circumstances in which it should be shared. In particular, the Trust believes that debate too often fails to make the distinction between identifiable personal data and the anonymised data which could radically improve monitoring and commissioning practices.

» Read it here: Progress

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