ASA Connect

Hello ASA Connect,

Does anyone have insight or experience to share about using publicly available government data for commercial purposes and value added reselling?

We're having trouble finding basic information on general concepts around whether commercial use of public government data is limited or is prohibited if the law doesn't specifically say that commercial use or value-added reselling is specifically prohibited.  Commercial is defined as "profit-seeking production, buying, or selling of any good, service, or other product".

For example, most motor vehicle registration data at the state level has specifically stated limits on how the data can be used/resold commercially. Users must apply for access, state their intended use, and be approved for all commercial uses. For other data, such as business registration filings or lien filings, commercial is defined and some access forms ask for disclosure and description of the commercial use (depending on the state) but whether or not commercial use is prohibited is not specifically addressed.

Any insight that you might provide is helpful.  We know that what might be offered is not legal advice but we need general insight based in real-world experience to obtain a general understanding of this issue.

Thanks in advance.

Linda

------------------------------
Linda A. Landon, PhD, ELS, PRC

Research Communiqué
Business, Marketing, & Policy Research

www.researchcommunique.com
LandonPhD@ResearchCommunique.com
573-797-4517

PhD, Molecular Pharmacology
Graduate Certificate, Applied Statistics
Board-Certified Editor in the Life Sciences
------------------------------

This is a question that comes up in my writing and speaking on data ethics. One important dimension of this question is ownership. Data must be understood as a form of property. We know data are property because of the two criteria: (1) data has commercial value - people buy and sell data all the time - and (2) data has an owner.

As these two facts demonstrate data is a type of property, an important conclusion results: public data is public property. It exists in the commons jointly owned by the public, like a city park or a public street. We may think first of the invaluable services by Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and all the rest. However, this applies to all data resources collected and / or maintained at public expense. I am not making a legal argument but rather an ethical one: we are discussing what should be and how people ought to work with data. In this ethical argument, the understanding of public data as public property applies to all data at any level of government collected, maintained, or provided at public expense. 

In short: we, the public, actually own the data. This status of public data as public property creates two requirements: 
1. Rules apply for access. For example, the Post Office and the Police Station are public property and everyone can go in the front door but only authorized personnel have access to designated areas. This legitimate restriction on access applies to government data resources. Some data will be public, other resources available upon reasonable request - as just one example, FOIA requests - and others may be highly restricted. Data on the testing of nuclear weapons is public property but that does not always mean public access. However, it must be understood at all times that the true owner of the data is the body public, not the government that holds it. 
2. Fiduciary trust. Those who use the data have an ethical obligation not use it to harm the public interest. As public data exists in the Commons, Tragedy of the Commons is a very real possibility. The ethical statistician and data scientist will use data in a manner that will minimize harm others and will not reduce established access to the data.

The understanding of public data as public property provides many examples that guide the commercial use of government data. For example, businesses drive their vehicles on public roads, making commercial use of this public resource. When doing so, these businesses must follow traffic laws and pay taxes to build and maintain the roads. In the same way, government data must be available for commercial use subject to established rules for access, just contribution to the cost of collecting and maintaining the data, and not using the data to cause the public harm. 

David J Corliss, PhD

DISCLAIMERS: (1) The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent those of of any organization, company, government agency, or other entity. (2) Full Disclosure: I recently began to serve on the Data Users Advisory Committee of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The view expressed are explicitly not the views of that committee or agency: they are the strictly personal views of one member of the committee. 

------------------------------
David J Corliss, PhD
Director, Peace-Work www.peace-work.org
davidjcorliss@peace-work.org
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-13-2020 13:11
From: Linda Landon
Subject: Limitations and best use commercial practices for publicly-available data.

Hello ASA Connect,

Does anyone have insight or experience to share about using publicly available government data for commercial purposes and value added reselling?

We're having trouble finding basic information on general concepts around whether commercial use of public government data is limited or is prohibited if the law doesn't specifically say that commercial use or value-added reselling is specifically prohibited.  Commercial is defined as "profit-seeking production, buying, or selling of any good, service, or other product".

For example, most motor vehicle registration data at the state level has specifically stated limits on how the data can be used/resold commercially. Users must apply for access, state their intended use, and be approved for all commercial uses. For other data, such as business registration filings or lien filings, commercial is defined and some access forms ask for disclosure and description of the commercial use (depending on the state) but whether or not commercial use is prohibited is not specifically addressed.

Any insight that you might provide is helpful.  We know that what might be offered is not legal advice but we need general insight based in real-world experience to obtain a general understanding of this issue.

Thanks in advance.

Linda

------------------------------
Linda A. Landon, PhD, ELS, PRC

Research Communiqué
Business, Marketing, & Policy Research

www.researchcommunique.com
LandonPhD@ResearchCommunique.com
573-797-4517

PhD, Molecular Pharmacology
Graduate Certificate, Applied Statistics
Board-Certified Editor in the Life Sciences
------------------------------

David,

Thank you for this thoughtful and well-written answer to my question.  I appreciate the time you took to provide it.  It is immensely helpful to us in our thinking.

We have been discussing how to think of and handle personal data that is intrinsically linked to business data. Personal data are governed by separate privacy codes from business data. For example, the owner of a business is a person who has reasonable expectations for and legal protections of their personal privacy but the business filing that is made by the owner on behalf of the business isn't covered by personal privacy. The business filing contains the owner's name and home address in addition to the business's name and address. Is the business owner's name and home address on the business filing considered to be protected private data but the business's name and address is not?  Given the business owner's name and home address, a third party would have enough information to access the owner's personal credit history inappropriately, for example. However, if a single person owns multiple businesses, then the name and address of that single person becomes pertinent business information in some cases.

Overall, if a consultant is collecting the business filing (or similar) data with the intent to provide the information to a client, how should the consultant consider their ethical obligation to protect the privacy of the individual? 

Thanks again for your answer.

Linda

------------------------------
Linda A. Landon, PhD, ELS, PRC

Research Communiqué
Business, Marketing, & Policy Research

www.researchcommunique.com
LandonPhD@ResearchCommunique.com
573-797-4517

PhD, Molecular Pharmacology
Graduate Certificate, Applied Statistics
Board-Certified Editor in the Life Sciences
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-15-2020 07:46
From: David Corliss
Subject: Limitations and best use commercial practices for publicly-available data.

This is a question that comes up in my writing and speaking on data ethics. One important dimension of this question is ownership. Data must be understood as a form of property. We know data are property because of the two criteria: (1) data has commercial value - people buy and sell data all the time - and (2) data has an owner.

As these two facts demonstrate data is a type of property, an important conclusion results: public data is public property. It exists in the commons jointly owned by the public, like a city park or a public street. We may think first of the invaluable services by Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and all the rest. However, this applies to all data resources collected and / or maintained at public expense. I am not making a legal argument but rather an ethical one: we are discussing what should be and how people ought to work with data. In this ethical argument, the understanding of public data as public property applies to all data at any level of government collected, maintained, or provided at public expense.

In short: we, the public, actually own the data. This status of public data as public property creates two requirements:
1. Rules apply for access. For example, the Post Office and the Police Station are public property and everyone can go in the front door but only authorized personnel have access to designated areas. This legitimate restriction on access applies to government data resources. Some data will be public, other resources available upon reasonable request - as just one example, FOIA requests - and others may be highly restricted. Data on the testing of nuclear weapons is public property but that does not always mean public access. However, it must be understood at all times that the true owner of the data is the body public, not the government that holds it.
2. Fiduciary trust. Those who use the data have an ethical obligation not use it to harm the public interest. As public data exists in the Commons, Tragedy of the Commons is a very real possibility. The ethical statistician and data scientist will use data in a manner that will minimize harm others and will not reduce established access to the data.

The understanding of public data as public property provides many examples that guide the commercial use of government data. For example, businesses drive their vehicles on public roads, making commercial use of this public resource. When doing so, these businesses must follow traffic laws and pay taxes to build and maintain the roads. In the same way, government data must be available for commercial use subject to established rules for access, just contribution to the cost of collecting and maintaining the data, and not using the data to cause the public harm. 

David J Corliss, PhD

DISCLAIMERS: (1) The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent those of of any organization, company, government agency, or other entity. (2) Full Disclosure: I recently began to serve on the Data Users Advisory Committee of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The view expressed are explicitly not the views of that committee or agency: they are the strictly personal views of one member of the committee. 

------------------------------
David J Corliss, PhD
Director, Peace-Work www.peace-work.org
davidjcorliss@peace-work.org

Original Message:
Sent: 06-13-2020 13:11
From: Linda Landon
Subject: Limitations and best use commercial practices for publicly-available data.

Hello ASA Connect,

Does anyone have insight or experience to share about using publicly available government data for commercial purposes and value added reselling?

We're having trouble finding basic information on general concepts around whether commercial use of public government data is limited or is prohibited if the law doesn't specifically say that commercial use or value-added reselling is specifically prohibited.  Commercial is defined as "profit-seeking production, buying, or selling of any good, service, or other product".

For example, most motor vehicle registration data at the state level has specifically stated limits on how the data can be used/resold commercially. Users must apply for access, state their intended use, and be approved for all commercial uses. For other data, such as business registration filings or lien filings, commercial is defined and some access forms ask for disclosure and description of the commercial use (depending on the state) but whether or not commercial use is prohibited is not specifically addressed.

Any insight that you might provide is helpful.  We know that what might be offered is not legal advice but we need general insight based in real-world experience to obtain a general understanding of this issue.

Thanks in advance.

Linda

------------------------------
Linda A. Landon, PhD, ELS, PRC

Research Communiqué
Business, Marketing, & Policy Research

www.researchcommunique.com
LandonPhD@ResearchCommunique.com
573-797-4517

PhD, Molecular Pharmacology
Graduate Certificate, Applied Statistics
Board-Certified Editor in the Life Sciences
------------------------------