Data security and controlling access Managing research data well workshop London, 30 June 2009 Manchester, 1 July 2009

Data security Protection of data from unauthorised access, use, change, disclosure and destruction physical security security within the data – editing/redacting the data – ensuring security by controlling access

Physical security appropriate access to buildings/rooms/computer systems where data held strengthen IT-specific security to reduce danger of breach – firewalls, security testing, regular anti-virus checks control access to restricted materials with encryption and/or password protection secure data transfer between centres/to UKDA

Encryption consider data encryption to maintain security during transmission now a requirement for deposit of Government data ONS use self-extracting encryption software Safeguard PrivateCrypto – advanced security algorithms (AES128 and AES256) Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) – open source (GnuPG), or commercial versions – create Private Key and passphrase, download and install UKDA Public Key so that only UKDA can decrypt file

Security within data During the research project/prior to deposit at the UKDA: gain informed consent from respondents – protect them but do not preclude sharing – see Managing and Sharing document and web pages, contact UKDA for advice anonymisation: reduce risk of disclosure of respondents identity – remove/redact direct identifiers, or hold them separately consider indirect identifiers – possible disclosure in combination with other information, including public files – quantitative data: occupation, geography, unique or exceptional values (outliers) or characteristics – qualitative data: pseudonymisation, information in text document any changes made consider access restrictions rather than over-edit data

Government data Statistics and Registration Services Act 2007 Special Licence data/Approved Researcher ONS have Microdata Release Panel to advise UKDA helping to facilitate this advice for other UK Government departments smaller-scale researchers may not have support or experience, UKDA can advise

Confidentiality vs. research usability aim for reasonable/appropriate level of anonymity maintain maximum meaningful information to enable worthwhile research End User Licence - users agree to maintain confidentiality and not to try to identify respondents combination of effective anonymisation and access restriction

Useful references UKDA information: ISO – user-friendly guidelines to ISO 27001, Information Security standard Grinyer, A. (2002) The Anonymity of Research Participants: Assumptions, Ethics and Practicalities, Social Research Update, 36, University of Surrey. Clark, A. (2006) Anonymising Research Data, NCRM Working Paper Series 7/06, ESRC National Centre for Research Methods /0706_anonymising_research_data.pdf 006/0706_anonymising_research_data.pdf

Examples UKDA works with depositor to maximise data sharing quantitative data: – APS and LFS - Special Licence and End User Licence versions – BHPS – subsets of geographical variables available via conditional access alongside main survey – SN 5827 Rape in the 21st Century: Old Patterns, New Behaviours and Emerging Trends, : some removal of variables, rounding of dates, combined with permission-only access qualitative data: – SN 5407 Health and Social Consequences of the Foot and Mouth Disease Epidemic in North Cumbria, anonymisation, pseudonyms, conditional access to particular set of interviews and diaries, embargo for another set