Uncovering the purchasing of private sector data by governments: State of play in the Netherlands

To address complex societal challenges, governments increasingly need to make evidence-based decisions 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 private sources. There is, however, scant empirical evidence and a lack of understanding of how government organizations go about data purchasing. This research is the first effort to create an evidence base about what data Dutch governments purchase from whom, how, and what for. In this study, we conducted a mapping to identify cases of Dutch governments purchasing private sector data (and related services) in the context of societal challenges. Our results map the buyers and sellers of data and data services in the Dutch context, as well as the types of data and data services sold, and in which policy do-mains. We further discuss our results in view of the data monetization routes identified from the literature.