Canadian Government Executive - Volume 26 - Issue 02

10 / Canadian Government Executive // March/April 2020 Technology By Matthew Tyrer How to maximize the value of I n the Report to the Clerk of the Privy Council: A Data Strategy Roadmap for the Federal Public Service, a strategy was outlined, intended to position the public service to provide di- rection and advice to Ministers and sup- port the more strategic use of data, while at the same time ensuring the protection of citizens’ privacy. As noted in the report, it “provides a roadmap for a more strate- gic use of data. The recommendations are structured around four themes: stronger governance, improved data literacy and skills, enabling infrastructure and legisla- tion, and more focused treatment of data as a valuable asset.” It’s imperative that data analytics be a part of these strategies. When designed and governed correctly, data analytics al- low agencies to quickly sift through vol- umes of backup, archived and other “dark” data to find actionable intelligence they can use to achieve great benefits. Some of these benefits include lowering storage expenses, securing sensitive data, support- ing data privacy, streamlining operations and improving how services are ultimate- ly delivered to citizens. Opportunities and benefits In the past, government – including local, provincial and federal – have all consid- ered data analytics a “nice to have” com- ponent of their data management strategy and quite often restricted its use to the data collected for specific, authorized pur- poses only. With the onset of mass digitiza- tion and other technologies, agencies now understand data analytics are no longer an add-on or luxury, but rather need to be core to their data management strategy as a whole. Without analytics, the ever- increasing volume, velocity and variety of data, coupled with growing security, com- pliance and privacy regulations, would overwhelm organizations. With data ana- lytics embedded into data management applications, government agencies can lay the groundwork for actionable insights and realize greater efficiencies. Embedded data analytics offers the chance to improve the speed and effi- ciency of initiatives such as IT infrastruc- ture consolidation and cloud migration by uncovering redundant or incorrect data that should be cleaned or deleted before migration. As well, what you don’t know about your data can hurt you; it’s impor- tant to have a full understanding of the data you have. For example, data analytics can identify sensitive, personally identifi- able information and data subject to pri- vacy regulations and safeguards. Finally, automating business rules, policies and procedures to support data analytics re- duces the human intervention required to data analytics in your data management strategy