Advances in public data help shape government response to crisis: Celia Moss, ABS

Public data is a valuable national asset: its use, reuse and sharing make government accessible, and help unlock insights that benefit Australian society.

It was the focus of the summation address delivered recently at the 2020 Australian Public Service Graduate Data Forum by Celia Moss, Program Manager, Statistical Data Integration Division at the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Celia began by teasing out some of the common themes arising from the forum: trust is hard to earn and easy to lose; data is helping Government respond to the COVID-19 pandemic; and it is important to balance innovation and agile use of data while maintaining strong protection and ethical safeguards.

She reflected on the use of data by government in response to recent crises:

Many of our data initiatives from the past few years have helped shape our response to the bushfires in Australia and our current response to COVID.  In fact I think this will be a defining moment in Australia in terms of gaining widespread recognition of the great value of public data to benefit society as a whole.

Our responses now in the face of such extreme challenges will shape our future data culture as well as our commitment to building strong data capability across the APS.’

And she shared her insights on the recent history of public data initiatives in Australia.

A link to a video of the address is available below.

More videos from the forum are available on the IPAA ACT website.