Privacy Management
When biodiversity data is freely shared, it can be aggregated to contribute to a wider, and ultimately global, understanding of biodiversity. Data can be used for research, management and education, in ways that are not necessarily anticipated when the data is shared.
Biodiversity data can also be misused, for example to target rare species for poaching. In other cases, biodiversity data can be commercially or culturally sensitive, and may have been collected under an agreement that restricts distribution of the data.
The need to manage privacy of data must be managed carefully whenever biodata is shared.
User stories
1) Auckland Council has initiated a terrestrial biodiversity monitoring programme which includes locations on public as well as private land. The council wants to encourage private landowners to allow a monitoring station to be set up on their land but at the same time give them the option for the data to be confidential. A letter is sent to the landowner briefly describing the monitoring programme and stating: "Should you require it, both your participation in the monitoring programme and/or the information that is collected on your property will remain strictly confidential. Any information collected from your property will be provided to you. The monitoring results will be used, with data averaged to ensure individual sites cannot be indentified, in environmental reports that the council is required to produce (e.g. State of the Environment report). These will be available for free from our website. If you wish to discuss this, or would prefer to restrict access onto your land please contact the project coordinator"
2) Auckland Council is undertaking a threatened plant survey on public and private land. Potential participants are sent a letter and given four conditions to choose from:
- I wish to participate and have my covenant included in the Waitakere Threatened Plant Survey and Recovery Management Project
- I do not wish to participate and have my covenant included in the Waitakere Threatened Plant Survey and Recovery Management Project
- I wish to participate and have my covenant included in the Waitakere Threatened Plant Survey and Recovery Management Project, but do not wish to have the information made avaiable to other organisations
- Other conditions or comments [landowner specifies]
Issues include:
- if the council collects the data, does the council 'own' the data or does the landowner?
- a landowner indicates they do not want to be part of the monitoring programme or threatened plant survey and the council would like to keep track of this response so they do not re-contact the landowner for this same programme in the future
- how best to describe the different licensing levels (i.e. creative commons levels) to the landowner in the permission letter
- recording the licensing level specified against the data collected
- if one part of council collects the data (i.e. research unit) and the data is marked as confidential, then how to share data with another part of the council (i.e. biosecurity team, planning team) that honours the confidentiality agreement
- an organisation external to council would like access to the data (i.e. DoC, Landcare, a university) and needs to know the license level of the data and how to contact the landowner for permission to use the data
- when the landowner is first apprached s/he wants the data to remain confidential. But in the course of monitoring a rare species/ecosystem is found, for example. The council re-approaches the landowner and enters into a dialogue about how best to protect what has been found. In the course of this dialogue the landowner wishes the licensing level to be changed.
"Privacy" vs "Confidentiality" vs "Licensing"
The term "privacy" tends to refer to personal information. Biodata may be commercially sensitive but is unlikely to be personal. To avoid confusion, it may be better to use the term "confidentiality". Even "confidential", however has a binary meaning. Either something is confidential, or it is public. It does not say much about what use of the data is permitted. "Licensing" may be the term that is most applicable to this matter.
Licensing of government data is dealt with in NZGOAL.
Discuss
Discuss Environmental Data Privacy Management in the Dataversity Public discussion group.
Checklists
Level One: No record of confidentiality considerations is associated with data.
Level Two: System exists to associate all records with a public/private flag.
Level Three: System exists to associate records with licence information.
Level Four: System exists to associate records with the original contract for the collection of the data.
Level Five: System dynamically determines permissions based on licence data.
Reference Resources
Best Practices for Sharing Sensitive Environmental Geospatial Data, Natural Resources Canada (GeoConnections). Executive Summary. Full Text (PDF).
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