Public sector data should be highly valued rather than given away to private companies who have devised algorithms to utilise them, according to a new report by the Government’s Science and Technology Committee.
The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report, ‘Algorithms in decision-making’, has made a series of recommendations around how algorithms should be used when it comes to public sector data. The report is particularly timely, given the Prime Minister’s speech earlier this week indicating that algorithms will now be used more in the NHS.
The RSS, which is quoted extensively throughout the report, welcomes many of the recommendations made by the committee, many of which chime with the evidence we gave during the inquiry. In particular, RSS executive director Hetan Shah told the committee that the public sector should value its datasets more than the algorithms devised by private companies to utilise them; his comment that ‘algorithms are valueless without data’ is quoted in the report.
This view is clearly shared by Science and Technology Committee chair, Norman Lamb. ‘The government must urgently produce a model that demonstrates how public data can be responsibly used by the private sector, to benefit public services such as the NHS. Only then will we benefit from the enormous value of our health data,’ he said in a statement, adding that ‘deals are already being struck without the required partnership models we need.’ The report recommends that the Crown Commercial Service be commissioned to set out a model for private/public sector involvement in developing algorithms.
Commenting on the published report, Hetan Shah says: ‘Algorithms have the power to improve public services and society, but there are risks that the public sector could be taken for a ride. The main lesson is that the power lies in the data not in the algorithm. Civil servants must not get seduced by the magic of the algorithm, and unthinkingly give away access to public data without knowing its real value, in the way that the Royal Free Hospital did to Google in the case that become notorious last year.’
He also particularly welcomes the report’s recommendation that as much transparency as possible is needed, particularly where algorithms can significantly affect the public or their rights. ‘The public sector should ensure any private sector provider makes the outcomes of their algorithms transparent so that they can be reviewed for discriminatory outcomes,’ he says, adding: ‘This new report lays out a platform of work for the Government’s new Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, which looks like it will have its work cut out.’