What is authoritative data?

I worked with the Geospatial Commission and the Geo6 (British Geologic Survey, The Coal Authority, HM Land Registry, OS, UK Hydrographic Office, The Valuation Office Agency) on the Data Discoverability Project, which formed part of a wider Data Improvement Programme. I was assigned to the ‘Enabling Authoritative Data’ workstream, which aimed to help people find geospatial data which they could trust within the ever-increasing volumes of data created and published every day.

What do we mean by ‘Authoritative Data’?

In my experience, both on the Data Discoverability Project and in my wider day-to-day work, the term ‘Authoritative Data’ is frequently used but often misunderstood.

Professional bodies and the literature, for example, provide several different definitions, all of which suggest the ‘authority’ of a dataset depends on mandates, certification or legislation, or its source:

Definitions of the term ‘Authoritative Data’

• Data provided by or on behalf of a public body (authority) which has an official mandate to provide it¹
• Officially recognised data than can be certified and is provided by an authoritative source²
• Applied only to data that is legislated or regulated. Validation must be part of the certification of authoritativeness³

Definitions of the term ‘Authoritative Source’

• An entity that is authorised by a legal authority to develop or manage data for a specific business purpose. The data this entity creates is authoritative data.²
• A source of data or information that is recognised by members of a Community of Interest to be valid or trusted because its provenance is considered highly reliable or accurate.⁴

When we asked the Geo6 what the term ‘authoritative data’ meant to them however, responses were much more varied and included a much wider range of factors. These included (amongst other things):

• Public trust and perception of the organisation publishing the data
• The quality of the data
• Whether the data was the best or only source
• The purpose of the data and its fitness for that purpose

User research offered yet another perspective. As part of the Data Discoverability Project, we carried out a series of user interviews across a range of user archetypes, asking participants to complete several tasks that required them to find geospatial data. Over 70% searched for a government organisation, and a further 20% clicked through to a government organisation’s website. Some users commented that this was specifically due to government organisations holding trusted and authoritative data. When questioned further about this, data quality was provided as a common response.

What this means for OS

They say: “beauty”, or in this case, ‘authority’, “is in the eye of the beholder”. In my experience, we all have subtly different understandings of what authoritative data is and should be, however these are all underpinned by the common themes of confidence and trust.

The Ordnance Survey public task sets out what we exist to do, including in relation to the National Geographic Database (NGD) of Great Britain. As custodians of Crown geospatial data, the Ordnance Survey public task defines our responsibilities to create, maintain, improve and provide access to consistent, definitive and authoritative location data of Great Britain. This is delivered and governed through the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA), which is funded by the Geospatial Commission to invest in the improvement of the data for the citizen.

However, “with great power comes great responsibility”. Data from OS is authoritative not just because of our public task. Its ‘authority’ is reinforced over time by continuous investment and improvement to a level of quality that meets our customers’ needs. Taking this more holistic view, all of the other factors identified by the Geo6 – quality, fitness for purpose, reputation – are not just important to our users but are fundamental assumptions by the users of our data.

With our public task comes an ongoing investment and valid expectation from our users, and indeed measured commitments with the Geospatial Commission, that our authoritative geospatial data is captured, curated and maintained to meet their needs. This in turn maintains our reputation and position as the authoritative National Mapping Service of Great Britain with a public task.

Together, our mandate through the public task, the trust and confidence that this affords our customers and data users and this idea of reinforcement over time, form what I visualise as a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ (figure 2).