America’s Data Future: Towards A Roadmap for Action

A Report of the Center for Open Data Enterprise (CODE): “The U.S. has had a strong bipartisan consensus that open federal data is an essential public good. Since 2009, initiatives by Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden and two acts of Congress have made federal data more accessible, transparent, and useful. The current presidential administration has not challenged these established principles. However, the administration has altered many government data programs on an individual basis, often with the rationale that they do not align with the President’s priorities.
Civil society has responded to these actions with a data rescue movement to archive critical datasets and keep them publicly available. There is a good chance that the movement will be able to save most of the federal data that was available in January 2025.
The greater risk, however, is to the future. The data we have today will not be very useful in a year or two, and future data collections are now under threat. Since the start of the Trump Administration, the federal government has:
● Dismantled and defunded agencies that collect data mandated by Congress
● Discontinued specific data programs
● Defunded research that can be a source of open scientific data
● Disbanded advisory committees for the U.S. Census Bureau and other data-collecting
agencies and offices
● Removed data disaggregated by sexual orientation and gender identity
● Proposed changing established methods of data collection and publishing in some key
areas
These changes can have a major impact on the many institutions – including state and local governments, businesses, civil society organizations, and more – that depend on federal data for policymaking, decision making, and growth…(More)”