Similar to data, data literacy has a variety of definitions depending on who you ask and from what context they are coming from. Gartner, a corporate/business entity, defines data literacy as "the ability to read, write and communicate data in context, with an understanding of the data sources and constructs, analytical methods and techniques applied, and the ability to describe the use case application and resulting business value or outcome." The Harvard Business School Online uses data literacy "to describe an individual’s ability to read, understand, and utilize data in different ways".
In fact, you will find a lot of conversations about data literacy that revolve around business and corporate interests. This "corporate data literacy" deals with topics such as upskilling the workforce, improving workplace productivity, increasing corporate performance, or using data to achieve commercial success such as in the Data Literacy Project which was founded by corporate entities such as Qlik, Accenture, Cognizant, Experian, etc.
There are indeed a lot of opportunities for data literacy to grow in the corporate setting and big businesses can make strong allies for pushing the data literacy agenda but that doesn't mean that data literacy is confined to that space. In fact, data literacy can probably provide more value and impact to people outside the corporate world.
In this website, although the topics and lessons can still be applied in a corporate setting, the focus is less about corporate data literacy but more about data literacy in the civic space and the public sector—what does data literacy mean for government agencies, newsrooms, civil society organizations, and the general citizenry? This could be learning how to read graphs and charts appropriately, how to draw correct conclusions from data, and how to recognize when data is being used in misleading or inappropriate ways. As such, data literacy itself deeply connected to other literacies such as statistical literacy which is the ability to make sense of statistics such as surveys and polls; visual literacy whcih is the ability to understand information presented visually in the form of charts and graphs; media literacy which is the ability to critically analyze the information consumed in different forms of media and also a powerful tool against disinformation; and algorithm literacy which involves understanding how algorithms influence people's lives and their effects on society.
We look at data literacy as a means to advance and protect safe, fair, and free societies. Because of the ubiquity of data and how embedded it has become in our everyday lives, data literacy has also become synonymous with our ability to effectively participate in today's society. It is an indespensable skill that allows us to navigate a society where data has become a key element in our interactions—not just physically but moreso digitally. In order to do so, we must build people's data literacy. This not only means empowering people with data skills but more importantly putting mechanisms and structures in place that will provide them the confidence to interact with data and a safe environment to improve and share their work. Building data literacy should be inclusive so that no single person, department, or organization would have a monopoly on data or data work.