These Good Practice Principles were developed by the Working Party of Senior Digital Government Officials Thematic Group on the Data-Driven Public Sector.
This group had been instrumental in ensuring the value of the experiences highlighted and questions answered through The Path to Becoming a Data-Driven Public Sector and the Data-Driven Public Sector Working Paper.
Lucia and I initiated this work under the leadership of Jaron Haas, Simone Schoof and Marieke Schenk from the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (MINBZK) in the Netherlands. We then workshopped elements of it in Paris during the Expert Group Meeting on Open Government Data prior to the pandemic.
The ultimate value of this exercise owes itself to Arturo’s leadership after he took on the responsibility of stewarding the Data-Driven Public Sector thematic group during this challenging period. He is indebted to the support of those countries but especially Natalia Domagala on behalf of the UK and Omar Bitar on behalf of Canada for getting to their final state.
As governments deepen their use of data and AI, ethical guidance becomes critical. These 10 principles from the OECD are designed to help public officials protect the public interest at every stage of the data lifecycle. They go beyond compliance—emphasising public integrity, trust, and responsible innovation.
The principles stress:
Putting people and the public interest at the centre
Being transparent, inclusive and accountable
Managing risks proactively, especially in automated decision-making
Here are the OECD’s 10 Good Practice Principles for Data Ethics in the Public Sector:
Manage data with integrity
Be aware of and observe relevant government-wide arrangements for trustworthy data access, sharing and use
Incorporate data ethical considerations into governmental, organisational and public sector decision-making processes
Monitor and retain control over data inputs, in particular those used to inform the development and training of AI systems, and adopt a risk-based approach to the automation of decisions
Be specific about the purpose of data use, especially in the case of personal data
Define boundaries for data access, sharing and use
Be clear, inclusive and open
Publish open data and source code
Broaden individuals’ and collectives’ control over their data
Be accountable and proactive in managing risks
Public trust in government is shaped not just by what services are delivered, but how they are delivered, and that increasingly means how data is handled. As digital technologies and AI become part of the machinery of public decision-making, it’s not enough to comply with the law. Citizens expect more: transparency, fairness, inclusion, and accountability.
These principles recognise that data is never neutral. The choices made by public officials – what data to collect, how to use it, when to automate – have real consequences for people’s lives. The OECD’s guidance offers a practical compass: helping governments navigate complexity without losing sight of the human stakes involved.
The blurb
The Good Practice Principles for Data Ethics in the Public Sector presented in this paper seek to shed light on the value and practical implications of data ethics in the public sector. They aim to support public officials in the implementation of data ethics in digital government projects, products, and services such that:
i) trust is placed at the core of their design and delivery and
ii) public integrity is upheld through specific actions taken by governments, public organisations and, at a more granular level, public officials.
This paper came about as a collaboration between us in the OECD’s Digital Government and Data Unit, and our sibling team, the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI). It gave me a nice opportunity to work with Jamie Berryhill from OPSI whose previous work had included a focus on AI as well as Blockchains Unchained.
This was a paper for which we commissioned an external consultant: Juho Lindman, an academic at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Filling out the team was my colleague Mariane from the Digital Government and Data Unit.
While Juho held the pen on the paper, it was a collaborative exercise in framing the argument and grappling with the ideas. I worked with Mariane on the 4th chapter and the discussion about digital maturity. For me it’s vital that in any conversation about blockchain we talk far less about its potential as a solution, and far more about whether public sector teams are equipped to ask the right questions and choose the right tools.
Because let’s be clear – in most cases, blockchain (or distributed ledger technology) is not the answer. This paper doesn’t just say “don’t believe the hype”, it explores why the hype emerged, how governments can see through it, and what to do instead.
This isn’t a framework in the same sense as some of our other OECD outputs so it doesn’t frequently feature in our in-country analysis. However it has been a helpful reference point for others with at least 40 citations (as of June 2025). And we hope it is helping to shift the conversation from “look at all these blockchain pilots!” to a more sober “perhaps blockchain isn’t the panacea we thought.”
We were invited to speak on a number of panels off the back of this work, and while the blockchain conversation continues to evolve, this paper remains a valuable counterbalance — especially in a public sector still vulnerable to buzzwords.
Governments around the world have explored blockchain technologies, often with great fanfare. But beyond a few small pilots, meaningful public sector impact has been minimal.
This paper asks why — and offers four angles to understand what’s really going on:
Is blockchain viable, valuable, or vital for government?
What myths have inflated expectations?
What distinguishes projects that succeed (or don’t)?
And are teams equipped to make wise choices?
It’s not anti-blockchain. But it is sceptical. And where many saw disruption, this paper encouraged reflection.
Themes in the paper
Blockchain: Viable, Valuable, or Vital?
The paper proposes a simple but effective lens: that blockchain might be viable (technically possible), but that doesn’t make it valuable (worth doing), or vital (essential). Public sector adoption often leaps to the latter categories without pausing to assess whether a blockchain is even needed. Our contention is that it is only those situations where all three criteria are met that blockchain should be part of the discussion.
Produced by the OECD but adapted from https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/deloitte-review/issue-16/cognitive-technologies-businessapplications.html.
10 myths about blockchain in the public sector
The second chapter of the paper is dedicated to some myth-busting. Juho systematically engaged with the following ten myths
Myth
Response
(Public) blockchains are disrupting the public sector all around the world
Blockchain-related public services that have actual users are very rare
It is impossible to build successful blockchain applications for the public sector
There is no obvious reason the public sector could not develop, implement, and use blockchain solutions
There is one obvious way to apply blockchain technology in the public sector
Blockchain could bring benefits to a number of areas
If you build it, users will come
Users need to be presented with the benefits of blockchain-enabled services
If it is blockchain, it needs to be big and disruptive
Small, pragmatic, and evolutive blockchain implementations are just as valuable
Nobody knows how blockchains are implemented
Technology and corresponding skills have developed in both the public and private sectors in recent years, and there is greater access to external skills (e.g., through partnerships or procurement)
Blockchain is a generic technological solution, like AI
Uses for blockchain technology are much more limited in their scope
We are not tech people and should not care about detailed design decisions like blockchain
Decoupling design from the implementation does not seem warranted
Results of blockchain projects contribute to blockchain knowledge
Experimentation is important, but those lessons and takeaways should be shared
Users care that services are based on blockchain
All other things being equal (e.g., equitable decisions, privacy of personal information, etc.), service end users do not generally care which technological infrastructure provides them with a service
Success and non-success in government blockchain projects
The paper investigates a number of different examples of public sector blockchain projects, looking to determine whether any of them have achieved any levels of ‘success’. We were interested in projects:
that have already launched (“gone live”) and obtained users
where the user base is not limited to test users
where users are demonstrating continued use of the service
We further considered success in terms of projects themselves, or in the benefits it brought to organisations.
In the case of projects we felt that these ideas would contribute to the success of a project:
addressing a clear, specific business goal
using appropriate technology
identifying and managing relevant stakeholders
engage end users with the service’s design
addressing problems encountered during implementation and pursuing unforeseen opportunities
While on the other side of the coin, we felt that these were non-success factors that would prevent good blockchain based outcomes:
disruptive projects are generally more complex and difficult to implement at scale
deploying projects with limited scalability may be impossible or not worth the effort (notwithstanding the learning opportunities they provide)
the lack of clarity regarding the legal or regulative side hinders service deployment
Teams, maturity, and organisational readiness
The blockchain question is almost never about the chain itself but whether or not the organisation has the capability to weigh options calmly, test ideas quickly, and adopt the right tool for the job. Mature teams:
understand the problem before the technology;
use the viable / valuable / vital test to filter hype;
work in-the-open, iterating with real users; and
draw on a common, government-wide platform of standards, data and guidance.
When those ingredients are missing, the conversation shouldn’t be “Should we do a blockchain project?” but “Why are we vulnerable to shiny-object syndrome in the first place?”
In other words, this paper doesn’t banish blockchain, it simply raises the bar. Only when a team shows real digital maturity, and only when all three V’s line up, does a blockchain solution make sense.
The blurb
Blockchain remains a hot topic for digital transformation and innovation. In the private sector, blockchain has demonstrated disruptive potential through proven use cases. However, despite strong interest and greater awareness, blockchain has had minimal impact on the public sector, where few projects have moved beyond small pilots. At the same time, there is a growing scepticism and cynicism about public sector blockchain. This paper seeks to understand why this is, by analysing the latest research in the area and identifying and analysing government experiences with successful and unsuccessful projects. It provides early findings on beliefs, characteristics, and practices related to government blockchain projects and the organisations that seek to implement them, with a focus on factors contributing to success or non-success. Although blockchain has yet to affect government in the ways that early hype predicted, government decision makers will nonetheless need to understand and monitor this emerging technology.
This is arguably a seminal piece in the landscape of thinking about ‘digital government’. This Policy Framework provides the analytical foundation to the work that the OECD’s Digital Government and Data Unit performs with it providing the basis for structuring Digital Government Reviews and, perhaps crucially, offering the intellectual foundations for the forthcoming Digital Government Index and the efforts to measure digital government maturity around the world.
This framework is a joint effort with different members of the team contributing different chapters and Barbara providing the overall leadership to splice those efforts together. I’m quite proud to have contributed the chapter on Government as a Platform, which is a subject close to my heart (and one I first wrote about on this blog back in 2012),
The Six Pillars of Digital Government: Foundations for the Future
The OECD’s Digital Government Policy Framework (DGPF) is much more than a set of guidelines; it’s the foundation for how governments across the world can reimagine public service delivery in the digital age.
Why Digital Government Needs Six Dimensions
Governments are facing increasing demands to be agile, transparent, and responsive. The framework’s six dimensions – Digital by Design, Data-Driven Public Sector, Government as a Platform, Open by Default, User-Driven, and Proactiveness – provide the basis for public sectors to achieve these goals. These dimensions don’t stand alone; they are interdependent and essential for creating a government that is fit for the digital era.
Digital by Design: The heart of digital transformation is embedding digital in every aspect of government from the outset. This isn’t about bolting on technology to outdated processes; it’s about creating a strategic and systematic approach to policy-making, using digital as the backbone for every stage of government operations.
Data-Driven Public Sector: Governments must recognise data as a critical asset. This dimension underscores the importance of data governance, ethical use, and openness. Data is more than a by-product; it is a core driver of how policies are formulated, monitored, and evaluated.
Government as a Platform: Government as a platform moves away from siloed services and towards a more ecosystem-based approach. By creating reusable tools, services, and infrastructure, governments can empower service teams to focus on the unique needs of their users, driving both innovation and efficiency.
Open by Default: Open government data, open decision-making processes, and transparency are key to creating trust and accountability. This dimension calls on governments to make openness the default setting, ensuring that public information is accessible and useful.
User-Driven: Services should be designed with the user in mind, not based on the convenience of government structures. This dimension emphasizes the importance of designing services based on real user needs and ensuring that they are accessible, inclusive, and responsive.
Proactiveness: Governments shouldn’t wait for citizens to come to them—they should anticipate needs and provide services proactively. Whether it’s using data to predict service demands or creating channels for continuous user feedback, proactiveness is about making government services as seamless as those in the private sector.
What Comes Next?
These six dimensions are not static. They are the foundation for the ongoing digital transformation that every government must go through. The OECD’s Digital Government Index is the next step, providing a quantitative measure of how well countries are performing across these dimensions. The framework will also continue to evolve, just as we must evolve our approach to digital government.
This paper presents the OECD Digital Government Policy Framework (DGPF), a policy instrument to help governments identifying key determinants for effective design and implementation of strategic approaches to transition towards higher levels of digital maturity of their public sectors. This analytical work builds on the provisions of the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Digital Government Strategies and supports the qualitative and quantitative assessment of the Secretariat across countries and individual projects.
The DGPF provides the ground for peer reviews and frames the design of the methodology and the OECD Survey on Digital Government to measure countries’ digital government maturity across the six dimensions covered in this Framework: digital by design, data-driven public sector, government as a platform, open by default, user-driven and proactiveness. The document is enriched with countries’ practices to illustrate the concepts covered in each of the six dimensions of the DGPF.
My time at Hull City Council has coincided with an emerging Open Data movement leading calls for greater transparency in the public sector. That has raised questions for my organisation and led to a lot of circular conversations. Recently things have started to change in a way that has got me thinking that perhaps the magic of open data is found from the inside out. Hopefully this series of posts will explain what I mean.
‘Open Data’
In some circles these two little words ‘open’ and ‘data’ have prompted much debate and discussion. Touted as making the public sector more accountable. Seen as an opportunity that excites because of tools it might make possible. But in other circles it’s an alien subject and a phrase that can be a little bit obtuse to those outside the choir.
Yes it is a phrase that means everything to the data evangelist but perhaps, as Graham suggests, it’s actually an idea that needs to die? Continue reading
QR codes are prolific but it doesn’t seem as though people are actually using them, or convinced by their value. I like them but I can understand that agnosticism because they seem to be added for the sake of it rather than because they add any value for the person doing the scanning.
The code on this post is just like that but it was two things I saw today that prompted me to write this. Firstly, via the quite excellent WTFQRcodes.comContinue reading
Robert Jenrick calls excessive compassion “suicidal empathy”. But what happens if we turn the accusation towards Jesus: his costly nearness, outrageous grace, Cross and resurrection?
Burnham has a theory of political power and is making deliberate moves to strengthen the centre. But it seems much clearer about where power should sit than about how the state beneath it should operate.
AI is already part of our mental health ecosystem, often through tools never designed as health services. The challenge is not whether people will use them, but how to govern what they find when formal support is unavailable or out of reach.
There are some jobs you leave because the evening has ended. The plates are cleared. The conversation has run its course. Someone is stacking chairs. It was good, perhaps even… Read more: When the first plates leave the pass
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