Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data (2001)

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POLICY AND ECONOMIC FRAMEWORK FOR PUBLIC-PURPOSE 37 ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS 4 Policy and Economic Framework for Public-Purpose Environmental Information Systems DATA POLICY Most environmental information systems are created and funded by the government for public purposes, including monitoring changes in the environment, research, monitoring the provisions of international agreements, and informing the public about environmental issues. Because the resulting information is built into innumerable judgments and assessments of considerable public importance, it must be highly credible. To be credible a sample of the data or data product must be independently tested and validated (see Box 4.1 and Appendix A). As a result, the core products of public-purpose information systems and the processes by which they were derived have to be open to scientific scrutiny and therefore be in the public domain. This full and open data policy satisfies the needs of scientists, government agencies, policy makers, and the general public. However, it tends to limit the enthusiasm of private-sector organizations, which rely on proprietary data for economic reasons, to be involved in public-purpose information systems.1 1Of course, environmental information systems for commercial purposes are being established by private-sector companies and to some extent by commercialized government agencies in other countries. The data products of these systems are created under a proprietary regime that seeks to maximize revenues by controlling the flow of information. Such a policy limits the usefulness of the data to scientists as well as to other public-sector organizations that rely on science-based products and interpretation. 

POLICY AND ECONOMIC FRAMEWORK FOR PUBLIC-PURPOSE 38 ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS BOX 4.1 HIGH-QUALITY DATA AND SCIENTIFIC AUDITS Data quality has two distinct aspects: the objective correctness of data (e.g., resolution, accuracy, consistency) and the appropriateness of data for its intended purpose.a High-quality data have been verified (data values are consistent with each other and meet specifications), validated (data values accord with what they represent), and certified (an appropriate authority has determined that data are correct and appropriate within specified margins for their intended use). Since data producers cannot evaluate the appropriateness of a database for an unknown user's purpose, they must provide sufficient documentation to enable the user to perform this evaluation. High-quality data are produced by both the public and private sectors. Whether commercially produced data are appropriate for scientific research or vice versa depends on the application. For example, IKONOS data are valuable for commercial purposes because of their high resolution, but their use for scientific purposes is compromised until radiometric calibration and accuracy are assessed through a scientific audit. By analogy with a financial audit, a scientific audit is performed by professionally qualified independent investigators, who check a sample of the underlying data to ensure that the product is consistent with the specifications that have been laid out. The auditor then makes a judgment about whether any discrepancies are material and by extension whether the data can be used for the purpose at hand. The result of the audit is openly available, although the input may not be. a J.Rothenberg, 1996, Metadata to support data quality and longevity, <http:// www.computer.org/conferences/meta96/rothenberg_paper/ieee.data-quality.html>. Nevertheless, some private-sector entities and Congress are urging government agencies to increase the involvement of the private sector in collecting and disseminating data, and creating data products (see Chapter 2, “Private-Sector Views”). Many government-developed satellite technologies are sufficiently mature that private-sector companies can profitably enter the remote-sensing industry by launching their own satellites or by developing new applications for commercial and public-sector customers. However, once established in the industry, private-sector organizations often do not want the government to compete with them by continuing to collect observations or to produce 

POLICY AND ECONOMIC FRAMEWORK FOR PUBLIC-PURPOSE 39 ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS and disseminate information products. This view has been echoed by Congress in bills authorizing funding for federal agencies,2 and in legislation forbidding agencies from competing with the private sector (see Box 2.2). Congress is seeking to create a smaller, more efficient government by transferring agency functions to the private sector (i.e., privatization; see Box 1.1) to the extent possible. The critical question is how far can privatization go without jeopardizing the goals of a public-purpose environmental information system? Mechanisms for involving the private sector in government operations include (1) contracting out data collection or services, (2) establishing partnerships to collect, produce, and disseminate data and information products, and (3) privatizing the government function. In the case of contracts a commercial vendor can be required to act as an agent of the government and thus abide by the government's policy of full and open access. With public- private partnerships, a data policy must be negotiated that permits commercial objectives to be achieved while producing the credible data that the public sector needs. Because the economic and data policies of the public and private sectors are so different, successful public-private partnerships are difficult to create. Finally, under privatization the private sector gains complete control of what was the government function and sets the terms of access. In such cases the public sector becomes one of several paying customers, although certain segments (e.g., researchers) may receive data, products, or services at discounted prices. The roles and potential conflicts among stakeholders in environmental information systems created purely or partly for public purposes are described below. Many of these conflicts derive from the well-known transition in the development of a new technology from an exploratory stage of basic research and demonstration to a mature stage 2Recent legislation noting the undesirability of government competition with the private sector includes National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2000, Public Law 10–391; National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal year 2000, Public law 106–65; National Weather Service and Related Agencies Authorization Act of 1999, Report 106–146 to accompany H.R. 1553, 106th Congress, 1st session; and Department of Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 2001, Conference Report on H.R. 4578, House of Representatives, September 29, 2000.