Data, trust, democracy and Covid-19: the first parliamentary assessment of the UK government’s approach to data during the pandemic

Abstract

There is a challenge with the collection, storage, use and archiving of data by government, especially regarding upholding trust in democracy. A gap in our knowledge exists with the use of data during crises. To address that gap, this article considers the UK’s Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s (PACAC) report on data and transparency during the Covid-19 crisis. This affords an initial insight into how the UK government used data to legitimate policy and support implementation. The data connected the government to the governed in two ways. First, it enabled democratic accountability. Second, it also helped persuade citizens to act in ways that the government wished them too. As a result, this dual function of the data published made it even more important than normal for the government to fulfil its democratic objectives with data.