The role and nature of consent in government administrative data

Abstract

This article draws on research undertaken by the authors as part of the Administrative Data Research Centre in England (ADRC-E). Between 2014 and 2017, we conducted four case studies on government administrative data for education, transport, energy and health. The purpose of the research was to examine stakeholder perspectives about the sharing, linking and re-use (secondary use) of government administrative data. In relation to the role and nature of consent given by data subjects for re-use, our study revealed significant variations in data provider and researcher attitudes. Although our study setting was England, we believe that the findings have wider resonance. Our analysis identified six factors which might account for the variations around consent: the specificities of the legislative framework governing the collection and processing of particular data; the type of data being collected and the relational context in which it is created; the broader information governance framework in which the data resides; the creating organization's approach to data release; the relative levels of risk aversity within the creating organization; and public perceptions and social attitudes. In conclusion, we consider whether consent is still the best mechanism available for data re-use, or whether a social contract model of data sharing should be developed.

Privacy Concerns as a Barrier to Sharing Data About Energy Use: A Rapid Realist Review

“…But there are other houses maybe they couldn't or maybe there's something about them that we don't know ..." (Frances, [28]) 3.3.4. Choice mechanism: options to opt out are often a condition of opting in In 9 studies participants raised issues over having the choice over setting the boundaries of data sharing, and this was a conditional barrier to data sharing [13,17,24,26,27,30,31,33,36]. Even when privacy concerns were low, participants wanted to know what information was being shared with third parties in order to make informed choices in what data to share and with whom, and in doing so share responsibility for the data sharing with the vendor [24,27].…”

“…Peer pressure as mechanism can be positive or negative People tend to be willing to share energy data with family, friends and neighbors to make comparisons of technology (demonstrating little privacy concern in this kind of data sharing) [15,30,33,35]. Comparing new technologies can be a conversation-starter, a way of learning about how technologies work and their functionality and other people's experiences of them, perhaps show them off, but there was less interest in their energy use [33]. Learning that a technology is widely used suggests that its use is a socially acceptable, and so the risks are assumed to be less [35].…”

“…The regulatory environment applied to data sharing may affect perceptions of risk by the public and therefore the expectations of privacy protection that govern policy decisions [22,26,33,38]. Data policies in a single country may fall foul of regional, e.g.…”

“…Five of these were studies of smart meters [18,20,23,26,41], three about the smart grid [19,30,36], two studies were about incentives [24,27], one study on energy governance [33], one study was about public vs private energy use feedback [15], and one study was about views on demand side response [16].…”

Towards a human-centred participatory approach to child social care recordkeeping

“…Permissions or consent, even if not at an individual level may be needed, for example, through consultation with care-experienced people. The issue of consent and its implications and manifestations for the secondary use of social care records is not yet fully understood (Sexton et al 2018).…”