In this post, Beate Lichtwardt from the UK Data Service and Deborah Wiltshire from the GESIS-Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences discuss an exciting new initiative to enable secure data to be shared internationally.
Due to their sensitive nature, access to secure/controlled data is highly restricted, they are only accessible via Trusted Research Environments (TREs), either remotely or on-site via dedicated Safe Rooms. Internationally, researchers qatar rcs data often face significant hurdles in terms of time and financial burden having to travel to a Safe Room, a hurdle not many could overcome. Progress has been made in the bid to open up international access, for example through the International Data Access Network (IDAN) project (since 2018) , and the Social Science and Humanities Open Cloud (SSHOC) project (2019-2022). One of the achievements is a bilateral agreement between the UK Data Service, UK, and GESIS, Germany, enabling a remote access connection between their two Secure Facilities (UKDS SecureLab and GESIS Secure Data Center).
Remote connections offer a safe environment to access confidential data. Datasets remain on the secure servers of the data provider (in location A) and are accessed via a secure encrypted internet connection (from location B) where all analysis is done. No physical transfer of the data ever occurs. The Safe Room at location B provides additional physical controls (e.g. Safe Room access and monitoring). This UKDS-GESIS agreement allows researchers in Germany to access a range of UKDS SecureLab datasets from the GESIS Safe Rooms in Germany. Likewise, researchers in the UK can visit the UKDS SecureLab Safe Room to work with selected secure data made available through the GESIS Secure Data Center. Another SSHOC outcome, the ‘Framework and contract for international data use agreements on remote access to confidential data’ has been used for writing this agreement between the two services and is available to facilitate the setting up of further remote connections.