AISP Toolkit Feb25 2025 - Flipbook - Page 16
Building Social License
As we move to the right on the spectrum of community engagement, we are building trust and
what is sometimes called social license, or social approval, to operate data infrastructure. People
support what they help create, and in an ideal context, a data integration effort would have social
license from the community at large and informed consent from individuals to use data to drive
decision-making. However, there are signi昀椀cant barriers to this ideal state. We strongly encourage a
developmental approach—start small and grow.
FOUNDATIONS FOR COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
Social license comes from an effort’s perceived legitimacy, credibility, compliance with legal
and privacy rules, and overall public trust. Earning it requires dedicating time and resources to
develop relationships, source and incorporate feedback, and engage with diverse partners on an
ongoing basis.
So how do we build social license? How do we move from ignore to inform to consult to involve to
collaborate? The answer, in short, is participatory data governance.
Working Toward Participatory Governance
The core work of centering racial equity throughout data integration is participatory data
governance—deliberate conversations and shared decision-making about data use with folks who
have diverse experiences, expertise, and skills. This is a simple and intuitive concept, but incredibly
challenging to operationalize and implement.
Data governance is the people, policies, and procedures that determine how
data are managed, used, and protected.
Participatory data governance is based upon community members having a voice in decisions.
Governance can be made more participatory and robust when many voices are involved—particularly
those represented in the data—and when policies and procedures are set up to allow for public
deliberation and power sharing. There are many models of participatory governance, with the most
common being structures that are broadly focused on operations (e.g., advisory committees) and
others that are more focused on speci昀椀c projects (e.g., participatory action research). See more
models and approaches in Resources and in the Work in Action.
The decisions made through participatory data governance are many and impact how equity and
community voice are centered at every stage of the data life cycle.
Examples of these decisions include:
Who sets meeting agendas?
How are research questions developed and prioritized?
Who reviews a data request?
Who can request access to the data?
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