Data for sale: Mapping of purchasing of company data by Dutch governments

Governments, including in the Netherlands, increasingly strive to make evidence-based decisions on pressing societal challenges and require the best available data as input. As much of relevant data is now in the hands of the private sector, governments increasingly resort to purchasing data from companies. There has been little systematic research into this practice, including to what extent it is common or possibly problematic. Over the last year an Utrecht University research team has taken the first steps in creating an evidence base about data purchasing by governments in the Netherlands.

Between August and December 2023, the research team — who are based between the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht Data School and the Utrecht University School of Economics — collected 33 cases of purchases of company data by national, regional, and local levels of the Dutch government. “Our analysis maps the buyers and sellers, as well as what the purchase contained, and in which policy domains,” explain Iryna Susha, Sofie de Wilde de Ligny, Mirko Tobias Schäfer and Fredo Schotanus.

The research data underlying this study has been made available as open research data and can be accessed here. It contains the list of 33 data purchases identified by the researchers and their characteristics. The cases present evidence that Dutch government organizations purchase data in such domains as mobility (blue), spatial planning (green), law enforcement (grey), economy (brown), employment (red), social (yellow), crowd management (pink)—colours referring to the image below.

Based on their analysis, the research team came to four key conclusions:

Lack of transparency in what data is being purchased and how. Dutch governments at all levels (national, regional, local) engage in purchasing private sector data in different forms, however, uncovering them in a systematic way is challenging. There is no comprehensive overview available and often transactions are scattered at the level of project invoices.

Governments purchase datasets, but also data analyses and data-based services. In addition to purchasing datasets, governments also purchase data analyses (data dashboards, monitors, analytics) and data-based services (which combine products, services, and data into intelligent solutions). The latter are often found in the mobility domain, for instance, when governments procure traffic installations including mobility analyses.  

The landscape of company providers is versatile; some hold a prominent position. Dutch governments procure data (services) from data science companies, providers of data, software, consultancy services, and foundations. In mobility and spatial planning domains, an active data market exists where Cyclomedia, Dat.mobility, Connection Systems, and Vialis are frequently mentioned providers.

Limited collaboration between Dutch governments on data purchasing. The research found limited evidence of collaboration or collective purchasing of data (services) by several governments, whereas several company providers sell similar solutions to several government organizations.

“These results suggest that there is a need for guidelines, community of practice, and more extensive collaboration between government organizations on this issue,” say the researchers. The second phase of the project focuses on understanding the challenges experienced by government organizations in the process of procuring data, data analyses or data-based services from companies and what lessons learnt and recommendations can be put forward.