America’s public data is part of our country’s critical infrastructure, every bit as important as our highways, bridges, railways, and dams. Roughly 300,000 public federal datasets, including GPS, weather, Census, and economic data, are an essential resource for policymakers, companies, state and local governments, and ordinary Americans.  

Now the Trump administration is disrupting our data infrastructure in unprecedented ways. 

Data experts across the country are alarmed by these changes, but they’re also seeing the opportunity for positive change. The months ahead will determine whether we end up with an unreliable, inaccurate and deeply flawed data ecosystem, or a new infrastructure that is better and stronger than what we had before.  

The administration began making changes to America’s data systems within a month of the inauguration. It began by deleting government websites and datasets, which an ad hoc army of “data rescuers” scrambled to save. 

In the last five months, the changes to data infrastructure have gone deeper. 

The administration has cut staffing and funding for data-providing agencies, altered or dropped specific surveys and data collections, disbanded advisory committees for the Census Bureau and other agencies that collect data, laid the groundwork for major changes to long-established data programs and removed data relating to sexual orientation and gender identity.  

On July 3, The Lancet published research finding that 114 of 232 federal public health datasets studied, or 49 percent, “were substantially altered,” primarily in how they referred to gender and sex. 

My nonprofit organization has just published a white paper on the current challenges and opportunities for America’s data infrastructure. Drawing on more than 200 sources and numerous discussions with data experts, we found a growing movement to reinvent America’s data infrastructure, not just preserve it. 

Advocates are simultaneously trying to rescue datasets and data programs while also envisioning something greater: a national data ecosystem that is more accessible, accurate, complete and secure.

Here are some of the best emerging opportunities to shape America’s data future.  

America’s data systems are facing a crisis, but like any crisis, this one can open up new possibilities. Federal data serves a huge constituency that ultimately includes every American. 

By thinking creatively and working together, we can preserve the country’s most important data resources, improve what needs to be made better and ultimately create the robust, reliable data ecosystem America deserves. 

Joel Gurin is president of the nonprofit Center for Open Data Enterprise, based in Washington, which he founded in 2015.