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December 29, 2022
The OPEN Government Data Act: A Primer
The Open, Public, Electronic, and Necessary Government
Data Act-also called the OPEN Government Data Act
(Title II of the Foundations for Evidence-Based
Policymaking Act of 2018 [FEBPA], P.L. 115-435)-seeks
to change how government information is formatted,
catalogued, and presented for public access and use. The
law established agency roles and responsibilities for
implementing further information transparency and
availability.
The act builds upon earlier executive branch guidance on
information management and digitization, including
executive orders and publications from the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) and the National Archives
and Records Administration (NARA). This In Focus
discusses access and transparency provisions of the OPEN
Government Data Act and selected issues for Congress.
Expand ing OM B's Informnation Roles
The OPEN Government Data Act (hereinafter, the act)
added new definitions of terms for government information
policy and new duties for agencies and OMB. The act
placed these definitions in Title 44 of the U.S. Code, which
discusses public printing, documents, and the Federal
Records Act (44 U.S.C. Chapters 21, 29, 31, and 33).
Further, the act's provisions are located in Chapter 35 of
Title 44, which focuses on OMB coordination of federal
information policy, as opposed to the broader
administrative procedure statutes of Title 5 of the U.S.
Code, where provisions associated with the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) and Privacy Act of 1974 are
located. The act's Title 44 location underscores the
increased role of OMB to guide information policy, while it
also tethers agency management of digital information to
the existing statutory framework for records management.
Prior to the act's passage, Title 44, Section 3504 of the U.S.
Code gave general authority to the OMB director to
oversee the use of information resources to improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of governmental operations to
serve agency missions, including burden reduction and
service delivery to the public, and to develop, coordinate
and oversee the implementation of Federal information
resources management policies, principles, standards, and
guidelines. The OMB director institutionally shares
information resources management policy roles with the
General Services Administration (GSA), NARA, and
certain other agencies (44 U.S.C. §3505).
The act made changes that affect government information
and transparency policy, which include:
defining and adapting certain information policy terms
to also contemplate a digital environment,
* calling for government information to be made open by
default,
* requiring agencies to conduct comprehensive data
inventories and facilitating the creation of a federal data
catalogue, and
* establishing agency-level chief data officer positions.
Adapting Terminokogy to a DigitaI
Environmnent
In response to the proliferation of networked information
technology, Congress continues to change federal
recordkeeping and information practices via statute. It
introduced several key definitions (44 U.S.C. §3502; see
box). The act builds on the Presidential and Federal
Records Act Amendments of 2014 (P.L. 113-187), which
require records materials to be assessed by the content of
the information-rather than the media used to store it-by
similarly requiring agencies to adapt government
information and data integration practices for a digital
environment (S.Rept. 113-218). The act also codified
portions of OMB Memorandum M-13-13 (2013) to be
compatible with FOIA and the Privacy Act.
Definitions in the OPEN Government Data Act
Data: recorded information, regardless of form or the media on
which the data is recorded
Data Asset a collection of data elements or data sets that may be
grouped together
Machine-Readable Data: data in a format that can be easily processed
by a computer without human intervention while ensuring no
semantic meaning is lost
Public Data Asset: a data asset, or part thereof, maintained by the
Federal Government that has been, or may be, released to the
public, including any data asset, or part thereof, subject to
disclosure under FOIA
Open Government Data Asset a public data asset that is (A) machine-
readable; (B) available (or could be made available) in an open
format; (C) not encumbered by restrictions, other than intellectual
property rights ... that would impede the use or reuse of such
asset; and (D) based on an underlying open standard that is
maintained by a standards organization
Metadata: structural or descriptive information about data such as
content, format, source, rights, accuracy, provenance, frequency,
periodicity, granularity, publisher or responsible party, contact
information, method of collection, and other descriptions](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.crs/govejyx0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)