Agreed upon definitions are key to any legal or policy regime. Definitions allow practitioners to classify technologies and standardize operations. A core set of definitions reflecting municipal uses of data will be vital to creating opportunities to standardize practices across departments and jurisdictions. This focus area seeks to establish definitions and core principles to standardize language and approaches to interdepartmental and inter-jurisdictional data sharing.

Just as some information is more valuable than other information, some information is inherently more sensitive. The gradations between the most sensitive and lease sensitive data should be reflected in the integrity and accountability measures municipal offices adopt. This focus area will offer for consideration a standard taxonomy around different data classifications, as well as some potential variations, and outline the proper measures cities should adopt to enforce consistency in operating procedures.

While protecting data from outside threats is a major concern of data governance, just as important is systematizing internal departmental procedures and improving delivery of public services. This Focus Group will-develop recommended policies and procedures that seek to ensure data is interoperable with municipal systems, accessible to appropriate staff, and appropriately protected access by unauthorized  individuals, with adaptable features to accommodate varying governmental structures.

As data collection by municipal governments has increased, so have concerns over the impact of collection activities on personal and community notions of privacy. Recent cybersecurity incidents faced by municipal governments also highlight the importance of strong information security and privacy preserving practices when governments collect sensitive personal information. This focus area will produce recommendations regarding privacy and security standards and protocols for intra- and inter-departmental data processing activities and for interactions with the public that involve gathering, storing, using and/or using data.

Much of the data used for municipal services and planning are collected and processed by vendors rather than the local government body itself. Sharing municipal data with independent researchers can also be vital to studying and ameliorating public problems. To assist municipal procurement of these data services and collaborations, this focus area will develop standard language for data sharing agreements that clearly outline rights and responsibilities of service providers entrusted with municipal data.

Meaningful data governance at the municipal level must be responsive to the desires and concerns of city or county residents. The daily activities of municipal residents are monitored, recorded, and processed to improve a litany of local services, but this must be done with community input to avoid unlawful and unconscionable invasions of personal and community privacy and also to make useful data available to community members in appropriate ways. This focus area seeks to establish transparency, oversight, and accountability measures that give communities autonomy over decisions that affect data collected by municipal governments and opportunities to engage in policy and practices discussions and deliberations with government staff and decision makers and other stakeholders.