Data Quality Act

The Data Quality Act (DQA) passed through the United States Congress in Section 515 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2001 (Pub.L. 106-554). Because the Act was a two-sentence rider in a spending bill, it had no name given in the actual legislation. The Government Accountability Office calls it the Information Quality Act, while others call it the Data Quality Act.

The DQA directs the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to issue government-wide guidelines that "provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies".

The DQA has been criticized by the scientific community and journalists as a ploy of corporations and their supporters to suppress the release of government reports contrary to their economic interests: "As subsequently interpreted by the Bush administration . . . the so-called Data Quality Act creates an unprecedented and cumbersome process by which government agencies must field complaints over the data, studies, and reports they release to the public. It is a science abuser's dream come true" (Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science, p. 103).

In a recent essay published in Engage, The Federalist Society's legal journal, the author held that unchecked data can become a tool for political corruption. "The DQA represents a classic case of 'slipping through the cracks.' Congress passed legislation that it failed to define, held no hearings on it, and developed no legislative history for it, leaving the details and their implementation to the very agency tasked with overseeing it. However, when that agency can be seen as a 'tool' of the executive, and in turn a 'tool' of the majority party, the only reasonable alternative is for the interpretation of the legislation to be left in the hands of the courts. An agency cannot be held to police itself." (Catherine Campbell Meshkin, "Unchecked Data: A Tool for Political Corruption? Engage Volume 11, Issue 3, December 2010).