Data ownership and stewardship
Every dataset has an owner.
Joining data from across an agency only works if it stays clear whose data it is, and who answers for it.
Two roles.
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Owner
The part of the agency accountable for a dataset. Decides who may use it, and for what.
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Steward
The person who looks after it day to day: what its fields mean, how good it is, and getting it fixed.
The open standards do part of this work. When a table follows TIDES or GTFS, its columns already have agreed meanings, so there is less to argue about.
Ownership decides who should have access. Zero trust is how that decision is enforced.