Unlocking the full potential of data requires supporting institutions to steward it safely while also enabling its use for broader system-wide goals.

Architecture and flow: Treating data as a systemic asset means architecting the conditions for it to flow securely, ethically, and purposefully across the whole ecosystem.

Addressing governance, culture, and institutional challenges: These are the key hurdles, as technology is often the “low hanging fruit”.

Legal and policy foundations: Data sharing requires tackling “hard slow-moving things” like providing a clearer legal definition of public data as a national asset and defining what constitutes “public good”. This clarity helps unlock sharing for CSEA and other uses where ambiguity currently causes paralysis.

Flipping the risk calculation: The perception of risk associated with sharing data must be balanced against the cost of inaction.

Accountability: Culture change requires strong leadership. Senior officials need a formal mandate and accountability for enabling data sharing for the public good. This includes incentives to find technical solutions to respecting data protection while sharing, instead of fully limiting access to data with the justification of data privacy. 

Operationalizing sharing: Practical steps are needed to make data interoperable.

Standards and interoperability: A lack of common formats and definitions means shared data is often unusable. The community needs a standardized framework for data quality indexing and sharing to ensure data is trusted and interoperable. This includes developing shared taxonomies of risk indicators and common formats for incident reporting.