Open research data and privacy violations

Abstract

Open research data refer to the practice of sharing research data with others to enhance science innovations and discoveries. Despite the great potentials of open research data, it comes with certain limitations, especially with regards to the privacy of research participants’ data. In this article, we examine the tension between public data repository policy and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). To achieve that, we draw on privacy as contextual integrity theory. We further enrich our research by interviewing 12 researchers from European institutions to examine their perception of whether open research data have privacy challenges or not. Our findings reveal that according to the heuristics steps of privacy as contextual integrity and the GDPR requirements, open research data may entail a violation to research participants’ informational privacy. Moreover, data repository’s policy is geared towards protecting the confidentiality of research participants’ data rather than their privacy. We further reveal that researchers conflate privacy and anonymity and lack knowledge of sharing research data practices.