Communication with outside stakeholders about the project is extremely important given the sensitive nature of operator datasets. Previous experiences in using mobile network data for national statistics have been instructive: If the project is proactively communicated at initiation, feedback from the public is more supportive. 

If a project that involves operator data is undertaken without public communication, the reactions from civil society and investigative media more often involve distrust and concern.

Potential first avenues for communication may include:

  1. General communication with the public via traditional media or other means regarding the initiatives of the NSO to enable the modernization of statistics, mentioning the efforts to contact mobile network operators and the telecommunications and data protection regulators. When this communication happens should be determined by the national context and views of stakeholders. However, establishing ongoing and open channels of communication with the public enables the transparency necessary to gaining the public’s trust in data sharing.   
  2. Informing the national supervising statistical council of the efforts made in modernization and accessing operator data. Such a council usually includes representatives of civil society and academia.
  3. Devising a dissemination strategy for communicating the results of the work with mobile network data step-by-step as first outputs emerge and are deemed to have the potential for the country’s statistics.

The NSO and ultimately the steering committee should discuss and decide on the communication strategy.

📖 Resources

In 2014, the Eurostat commissioned a Feasibility Study on the Use of Mobile Positioning Data for Tourism Statistics, which includes a chapter on public opinion (Report 1, Chapter 5.3). The chapter provides a good overview of how public privacy concerns may manifest, and the successes and failures of communication. The guide concludes that proactive communication is key.

The Global Partnership’s Cookbook on Effective and Ethical Data Sharing at Scale shares recipes for communicating with the public and stakeholders, including a multi-stakeholder workshop that the Gambian Bureau of Statistics and the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority organized to inform wider stakeholders of the project, its merits, and methods.

Eurostat has set up an expert group on ‘Facilitating the use of new data sources for official statistics’ to reflect on these new opportunities and make recommendations to enhance the reuse of private sector data in official statistics under the European strategy for data. The expert group emphasized inclusive and open participatory mechanisms and formal consultation with all stakeholders (including those representing the public) when it comes to reuse of privately-held data.