Organizations are increasingly launching data-for-good programs for reasons that are both charitable and commercially lucrative, according to a new report by Gartner Inc. Fear of legal or regulatory consequences shouldn’t hold others back.

Gartner defines data-for-good as “a movement in which people and organizations transcend organizational boundaries to use data to improve society.” Examples include consumer review site Yelp Inc. providing ratings data to cities to help food safety inspectors prioritize their inspections and Google Inc., sharing search data with hospitals to prevent infectious disease outbreaks.

Recent scandals involving misuse of data by Cambridge Analytica, as well as general wariness about new data protection regulations in Europe and elsewhere has created confusion about the rules surrounding data-sharing for humanitarian, environmental and other causes, wrote co-authors Cindi Howson, Mark A. Beyer, Carlie J. Idoine and Lydia Clougherty Jones. But the rules about data use in those contexts are often more flexible than people believe.

“Privacy principles, including those laid out in the General Data Protection Regulation, support data sharing and enable entities to share data for commercial purposes, including for social good purposes,” the report notes.

Data-for-good has a business upside as well. Organizations that collaborate with nonprofit and governmental organizations to improve the human condition can promote these activities in their recruiting efforts to great effect. Gartner expects that employers with data-for-good programs will have 20 percent higher retention rates for data and analytic experts than those who don’t over the next couple of years.

That’s important in labor markets facing critical shortages. For example, the authors estimated that there are currently 236,000 data and analytics job openings in the U.S. alone, with more than half taking longer than six months to fill. The study cited a 2015 European Commission report that estimated that 77 percent of jobs for data and analytics professionals were unfilled amid a projected 160 percent increase in demand.

More dollars for good

Investments in programs with positive social impact have been on the upswing, with funding increasing 33 percent from 2014 to 2016 in the U.S. and growing fourfold in Australia from 2014 to 2017. Mentions of data-for-good-related terms have also increased 68 percent on social media over the past year.

The report provides numerous examples of organizations that are using data to effect social change, such as the Big Data Social Justice Foundation, which raises awareness of the value of data and analytics in social justice, disease, famine, social inequality and criminal justice. DrivenData has used its  crowdsourcing platform to analyze social media to understand perceptions of European refugees and attitudes toward climate change.

DataKind has a worldwide network of chapters and 18,000 volunteers who organize local events and connect data science volunteers with data-for-good initiatives in their region. An ongoing partnership with Crisis Text Line, which provides text-messaging-based crisis counseling, uses data analysis to help CTL route texters more quickly to the support they required, contributing to an estimated 14,000 rescues of people at risk of suicide or self-harm.

Commercial data-focused companies are mostly participating by providing free software and support to socially aware causes and encouraging employees to donate their time. For example, Alteryx Inc. allows employees to spend 20 hours per year on data-based charitable activities. Salesforce.com Inc. donates 1 percent of time, equity and product back to the community. And SAS Institute Inc. partnered with WildTrack to use artificial intelligence to track endangered animals by analyzing images of their footprints.

“Private-sector companies are uniquely situated to leverage data for a social purpose, including internal data and external data,” the report says. Fears about violating legal or regulatory guidelines are usually overblown, particularly if the data is anonymized. “Even within revenue-driven data collection, commercial entities that have acquired flexible data rights — for example, through a data sharing agreement — may share data with third parties that may then use it for good,” the authors write.

They recommend that commercial companies that want to embark upon data-for-good initiatives first create a digital ethics strategy that states what will be shared and under what circumstances. Choosing not to share data over fear of violating rules has led to tragic consequences, such as child abuse cases, mass shootings and terror attacks. Organizations shouldn’t let fear of regulators hold them back from making the world a better place, the researchers concluded.

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