Data interoperability — the ability of different government systems to exchange and use information seamlessly — is what lets governments move from reacting to problems after they happen to spotting and addressing them proactively. Based on a review of government documents and interviews with data officials at the federal, state, and local levels, this data brief lays out where interoperability stands today and what's slowing it down.

Three related terms often get used interchangeably, though we draw a clear line between them: data transparency (how openly data practices are explained), data integration (combining data from different sources into one consistent system), and data interoperability (getting separate systems to exchange data without heavy manual work).