GCP – The three pillars of data-driven government

Over just the past few years, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) have remarkably transformed IT and data science at the enterprise level. Yet, the public sector is still working through some significant “growing pains” adapting Data & AI strategies and infrastructure to improve and accelerate public services.

Google’s experiences across the Public Sector have led us to offer an adaptable framework for governments for defining and refining your government’s AI & data access strategy. We can break it down into three core pillars:

1. Defining a government Data Access Platform (DAP): A platform where individuals and businesses can easily find and access government data. This platform should be user-friendly with robust search capabilities, clear access routes, and strong governance protocols.

Key points to consider:

• An authoritative single point-of-entry to access major regional and local government datasets, whether held in the platform itself or elsewhere.
• Allowing users to both search and preview the data, based upon metadata in a uniform schema around their unique requirements.
• Providing a clear route to access–either directly via the platform itself, or facilitating direct peer-to-peer access to the actual data owner.
• Robust governance and fine-grained control of who accesses what–private versus public datasets.
• Hosting across multiple data formats: tables, text, videos, and geospatial information and timeseries.
• An API driven platform that allows for applications (public and private) to be built on top of the data services it provides.

2. Assembling a central DAP empowerment team: A dedicated team responsible for building, managing, and promoting the data access platform. This team should set clear goals, measure success, establish governance principles, incentivize participation, and provide training and support to the government departments:

• Builds, owns, and operates the cross-government data access platform, as well as recommends additional integrated components.
• Defines benefits to the public: better and faster public services, simpler user interactions.
• Sets, captures, and reports metrics: success among users and overall impacts.
• Sets core strategy and governance principles: primary data owners/datasets, metadata, formats (proprietary or open source).
• Incentivizes adherence within or between departments–including funding, penalties, or recognition.
• Coordinates necessary training and upskilling to modern technologies.
• Manage relationships with a set of trusted partners who can assist with the full scope of data implementation.

3. The DAP-empowered ministry / government agency: As both contributors and beneficiaries of the (DAP) and the services of the central DAP empowerment team, the ministries or the government agencies should focus on a series of continual goals and strategies:

• Establish a dedicated team of analysts capable of adeptly leveraging AI/ML tools and answering queries–proficient in data analysis, interpretation, and visualization, and able to respond to information requests from both internal and external stakeholders.
• Manage internal data to high standards, ensuring data quality, accuracy, completeness, and consistency, as well as implementing robust data governance and security protocols.
• Integrate with the DAP’s tiered access system–align existing data management systems with the DAP’s access controls to ensure appropriate data sharing and security across different levels of users.
• Make selected data available to the DAP–identify and share relevant data with the DAP to contribute to broader government-wide data initiatives in support of informed decision-making.
• Develop a set of in-house tools and capabilities to complement DAP-provided tools, where needed: specialized analytical tools, data visualization dashboards, or data management workflows tailored to the specific needs of the agency.

Meet us at Google Cloud Next 25 in Las Vegas

For deeper technical perspectives on redefining your department’s data strategy–including the emerging integral roles of leading-edge AI/ML– be sure to join us at Google Cloud Next ‘25, taking place April 9-11 in Las Vegas. We’ll showcase Google’s latest AI and cloud innovations, designed to empower agencies across the public sector and meet their missions.