GUEST COLUMN.

Today, the question facing governments is no longer whether they should use data. Especially in an age of Artificial Intelligence, that debate is long settled. The harder and more urgent question is how to govern data in ways that are trusted, durable, and fit for increasingly complex societal challenges. In short - how to make government data initiatives more effective and legitimate at the same time?

This question is where data stewardship steps in. Within a government setting, data stewardship is the practice of governing public-sector data as a shared civic asset, one whose value depends not only on technical performance but on legitimacy and institutional accountability. It begins from a recognition that data is a social artifact, embedded in social, political, and cultural processes. Only such a lived, non-technocratic approach can help local and state governments navigate the trade-offs, uncertainties, and value conflicts that increasingly define public-sector data use.

Limitations of the Current Approach

Too often, data strategy is framed as a technical exercise. But the shortcomings of a technocratic approach leave state and local data and innovation officers navigating tensions that technical solutions alone cannot resolve: promoting data sharing and reuse while also safeguarding privacy and civil liberties; delivering innovation and efficiency even as public skepticism and trust deficits deepen; and responding to growing pressure to deploy AI systems despite unclear lines of accountability and uneven institutional capacity. 

These are not engineering problems but governance challenges that require judgment, legitimacy, and sustained institutional stewardship. While current orientations toward data governance, focusing on  risk avoidance and compliance, continue to have an important role, today’s data requires socially embedded governance that centers legitimacy and public trust as facilitated by data stewards. 

The Vital Role of Data Stewards 

Data stewards move beyond today’s limited, technocratic approach, instead advancing—and embodying—a principle of legitimacy rather than merely compliance. This shift reframes the questions that guide data practice, from whether a particular use is legally permissible to whether it is socially appropriate, publicly understandable, and institutionally accountable.

Instead of asking only whether data can be collected or reused, data stewards ask what questions are important to communities and whether communities understand how their data is being used and why. They may ask whether the benefits of data reuse are distributed fairly, and whether decision-making processes are transparent and open to challenge and redress. Data governance oriented toward legitimacy is not based on a one-time approval but rather an ongoing practice of judgment that takes into account community norms and social preferences.

This stewardship role becomes even more critical as governments increasingly rely on data from non-traditional sources— including data collected and controlled by private companies. These kinds of collaborative partnerships can expand capacity and insight, but they also shift control over data generation and use outside the public sector, introducing new asymmetries of power and access. 

It is worth noting that these dynamics are especially consequential at the state and local levels, where governments are closest to residents and where data-driven decisions most directly shape people’s daily lives. In this context, opaque data practices or poorly governed partnerships are not experienced as abstract governance failures, but as tangible breaches of trust that have a material impact on daily life.

How can data stewards put these ideas into practice? What does it mean to uphold the principles and commitments outlined above? Drawing on our work at The GovLab and The DataTank, we identify four core stewardship actions that translate legitimacy and social license into operational practice: 

·        Define purpose: Why is data being used, and for whom?

·        Set principles: What values guide reuse, especially under uncertainty?

·        Design processes: How are decisions made, reviewed, and adapted over time?

·        Build capacity: What abilities exist across agencies, partners, and communities?

Together, these four actions also underpin our Data Stewards Bootcamps - most recently delivered with the Chief Data Officers of the State of Maryland - where they are translated into concrete tools and workflows for responsible, legitimate data reuse in practice.

Key to these stewardship actions is the understanding that data governance in today’s world needs to be collective and dynamic, requiring continuous maintenance and renewal over time. For state and local governments, this means embedding agency into data governance by integrating feedback loops that allow public input to shape decisions over time. This involves investing in public engagement not as a procedural formality but as a sustained practice that informs decision-making, builds legitimacy, and creates clear and meaningful pathways for accountability and redress. 

None of these are optional or ancillary. They are core conditions for effective, sustainable and legitimate public sector innovation in an era in which data is deeply consequential, routinely reused beyond its original purpose, and more central to governance and public decision-making than ever before.

Conclusion

For too long, governments have treated innovation and governance as being in tension. This is a false trade-off. Today, it is clear that effective governance is what makes innovation possible - both for the private sector and for the creation of public value.

I conclude with five recommendations for state and local officials seeking to navigate this moment and translate data and technical capacity into sustained public value:

1.     Invest in data stewardship roles

2.     Engage communities affected by data reuse and seek a social license

3.     Treat data governance as a living system, not a static policy

4.     Align data use with public purpose, not just operational efficiency

5.     Invest in legitimacy as deliberately as in technical capacity

The governments that succeed in the coming decade will not be those with the most data or the most advanced tools. They will be those that steward data with clarity, humility, and accountability - turning data ambition into public value that communities can see, feel, and trust. Strategic data stewardship is key to this process, enabling innovation to scale, partnerships to endure, and public institutions to maintain legitimacy over time.

The contents of this Guest Column are those of the author, and not necessarily Barrett and Greene, Inc

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