Even with the DATA Act, the Forecast for the Transparency Remains Murky

Congress passed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, better known by the “nerderatti” as the DATA Act, in an attempt to enlighten taxpayers about the mother lode of federal spending data. But it’s far from clear we’ll end up with the kind of transparency that matters most.

Building on USASpending.gov, which pulls grant and contract data from agency systems and makes it searchable on the Internet, the DATA Act requires the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget to undertake a fairly arduous transformation of spending data from disconnected documents into open, standardized data, and to publish that data online. Sounds good, right? But before we start counting our new-found riches, let’s explore further. There’s a difference between data transparency and useful information -- a distinction that’s likely to get lost in translation.