An Integrated Approach to Implementing Data Stewardship Policies through PIAs

• Activity Number: 267
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Government Statistics
• Author(s): Wendy L. Alvey*+
• Companies: U.S. Census Bureau
• Keywords: data stewardship ; privacy principles ; E-Government Act ; Privacy Impact Assessments ; policy development

Abstract

For the past three or four years, the U.S. Census Bureau has been working on an integrated approach to developing corporate data stewardship policies. At the past few JSMs, we have reported on the vision we had in mind, the framework for that effort, and the underlying Privacy Principles that support the data stewardship approach. We have also briefly discussed some of the policies that the Data Stewardship Executive Policy Committee (DSEP) has developed to address gaps in current practice identified by those Privacy Principles and described some preliminary work we have done on developing a tool to capture the results as part of the E-Government Act's required Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs). The DSEP's focus over the past couple of years has been on establishing these new internal policies to strengthen the Census Bureau's role as a good data steward. Of about 20 policies under development, just over 20% have been adopted. The problem is that that is when the hard work begins--we have learned that implementation involves a whole lot more than just announcing the new policy. This paper will talk about the Census Bureau's approach to implementation of DSEP policies, designed to ensure that the policies are applied efficiently and consistently Bureauwide, with a minimum of additional burden to the individual program areas. It will focus on the use of the PIA process to integrate the various policies with existing processes.