Thursday 8 March 2012

Personal data, public information - Research data and information law

The SHARD project is looking at the preservation of research data for the traditional requirements of peer review, re-use and retention of digital assets. I have been asked to briefly cover – and it’s the ‘briefly’ that’s the challenge – for the project blog the subject of ‘access to information’ legislation and how it relates to the management of research data. Preserving your research data also has a legal context that is worthy of serious consideration.

What do I mean by ‘access to information’? Let’s get the acronyms established early on for three pieces of legislation: The first is the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), which is concerned with the ‘personal data’ of living identifiable individuals. The other two – the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Environment Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) – are concerned with ‘public’ information held by ‘public authorities’. Research data can be covered by all three.

Many researchers are looking at these issues already. Data management plans are a routine requirement for many research funding bodies. If there is no data management plan available for your research use one of the available templates provided by your institution or organisations such as JISC and the Digital Curation Centre.

Personal data

Research data that contains reference to living individuals – interview scripts, contact details, even statistical information relating to small numbers of individuals etc. – should be managed according to the eight principles of the DPA. I won’t go into too much detail about this here, as there is so much guidance already available, suffice to say that the following should be considered:


  • Do the individuals identified in your research data know how and for what purpose their data is being held? Have they given their consent?

  • Is there provision to store the personal data safely and securely?

  • How long are you planning to hold the personal data for? If the answer is ‘forever’, can you anonymise it and still retain its value?
If you are unsure, do ask your institution’s Data Protection Officer or similar information compliance contact. They will be keen to help. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s information and privacy regulator, now has enforcement powers to fine organisations up to £500,000 for the loss or unauthorised access of personal data. The rigour of a data management plan is therefore vital not just in protecting your research project, but your institution as a whole.

Freedom of Information

Since 2005, all organisations defined as ‘public authorities’ in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). In Scotland they follow the similar (with at least one important difference for research data, as we will see) Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA). The crux of the Act is that the public has a right of access to information ‘held’ by public authorities. If asked for information, the authority has to confirm that it is held and provide it, unless a legal exemption applies. The Environment Information Regulations 2004 provides a right of access to ‘environmental information’ under similar timescales and some slight differences in detail to FOIA but, for the purposes of this blog, my statements should generally cover both.

Universities are defined as public authorities by the Act and therefore obliged to respond to FOIA requests. This is not always as simple as it sounds, in that unlike many other public authorities, Universities operate in a competitive, increasingly international environment with an ever-decreasing proportion of public funding. More nuanced still is the relationship of the individual academic with ‘their’ research data, produced in everything from solitary sabbatical study to global partnerships of research institutions. At the same time, there is a significant ‘open access’ movement in academia which is arguing for the pro-active publication of research data through online journals and repositories.

FOIA and EIR requests have been made for research data and in some cases have required the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to issue a ‘Decision Notice’ in order to ensure disclosure. Queen’s University Belfast were ordered by the ICO to release over 40 years of research data on tree rings, used for climate research (see the news item) under the EIR legislation.

There are, however, several exemptions in the FOI Act that can apply to research data requests: Section 22 ‘Intended for future publication’ allows a University to exempt information that will be later published. Section 43 ‘Commercial Interests’, exempt the disclosure of information which could prejudice the commercial interests of the University or another party, such as a partner institution or research funding body. If your research data contains personal data, then parts of it are likely to be exempt under Section 40 ‘Personal Information’. FOISA includes a specific research data exemption - Section 27(2) – but even so this derives from the general principle of ‘intended for future publication’ and is unlikely to prevent disclosure of research data held in the manner of the ‘tree ring’ dataset.

It is definitely worth reading the ICO’s guidance for the Higher Education sector around FOIA.

Once again, if you are unsure, do ask your institution’s Freedom of Information Officer or similar information compliance contact. Try and envisage in your data management plan how you would deal with a request for your research data. It may be that public disclosure of research data is a desired outcome of the project; it may require some serious consideration and discussion amongst the research team.

Conclusion

Access to information legislation in the UK can apply to research data. This can have important implications for a research project and therefore acts as another driver for ensuring that your data is managed and preserved effectively. Ensure that you create a data management plan when starting on a new project and discuss any issues with the FOI/DPA compliance officers at your institution.

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