Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 06

December 2018/January 2019// Canadian Government Executive / 13 INTELLIGENCE I f your Deputy Minister asked you to identify a dozen communities that had laid off factory workers in the last quarter – how would find them? What if she asked you to track which re- gions have benefitted economically from the award of a large defense contract in a neighbouring city? What if she asked you to track which countries visitors came from at your trade show booth? Or which townships had an abnormally high num- ber of potholes? Or how many retailers would be affected by the moving of a com- munity centre? The very thought of drilling down to the provincial, regional, municipal, or even neighbourhood level has struck fear in the hearts of many an experienced team in the past. While conventional intelli- gence acquired by conducting surveys or through consulting or market intelligence firms can provide valuable insights, they can be expensive, time consuming, and difficult to compare across geography and time. StatsCan offers a high standard in terms of defensibility, but these data can be aggregated in categories that may not be relevant for the analysis at hand. For example, industry or occupation group- ings can be challenging to work with, and certain data are only available at a federal or provincial level. Furthermore, the most recent updates, in some instances, can be several years old. Non-conventional intelligence offers an alternative for more granular, compa- rable, and timely insights at prices which can be fractions of comparable sources. From social media, the Internet of Things, the sharing economy, and satellite imagery, this brave new world has opened up an entire blue ocean of new opportuni- ties for policy teams in almost every de- partment. In fact, for perhaps the first time in many years, the public service is faced not with an issue of a lack of intelligence, but rather an issue of having the capacity to make sense of all of it. An Old Story with a New Twist For much of the business world, this has been a well-known narrative. Hedge funds can now use satellite imag- ery to count cars in Walmart parking lots to anticipate revenue surprises. Marketers mine social media feeds to provide target- ed advertising on everything from cloth- ing recommendations to restaurants in your neighbourhood. Weight-loss clinics can theoretically infer obesity rates down to a neighbourhood level through partner- ships with automotive companies – a car knows how much you weigh because that information is collected to calibrate the airbag. Given the almost endless ways that data can be leveraged, and given that the price of data will continue to decrease, the ques- tion is not so much if public servants will one day be exploring the use of non-con- ventional intelligence (in fact, many al- ready are!), but rather how we can do so in a manner that is responsible, defensible, and value-creating. Privacy The most important aspect in your jour- ney towards the non-conventional use of intelligence is privacy. Engage the privacy commissioners early in the process. They will be an invalu- able resource in terms of establishing and documenting your process, identifying best practices, recommended training and flagging risks that only trained experts can see. There are numerous resources online to help you start your journey, and you may already have access to internal experts within your department, such as those handling Freedom of Information requests. If you ever continue to doubt the need for the public servant to be vigilant about privacy, re-read a few articles about Ed- ward Snowden and Cambridge Analytica just to remind yourself about the reputa- tional risks that governments can face in handling potentially personally identifi- able information. In fact, just this October, Statistics Canada was in the media regarding their proposed collection of data from financial institutions. This will not likely be the last time that a Canadian government’s use of personally identifiable information will make headlines. Use Multiple Sources Because your methodology could be un- familiar to your audience, defensibility is even more, not less, of an imperative than in using conventional intelligence. Sup- pose you use Twitter to shed insight on which users around the world have dem- onstrated interest in immigrating to your region. Is this a representative sample given the demographic of Twitter? Using both non-conventional and conventional sources, such as LinkedIn and census data, you can build an even richer narra- tive and more compelling evidence-based proposal. In recent years, the trend towards open government data sets has certainly been a cost-effective way to gather intelligence. However, supplementing these with non- conventional intelligence can provide a From social media, the Internet of Things, the sharing economy, and satellite imagery, this brave new world has opened up an entire blue ocean of new opportunities for policy teams in almost every department.