Sharing anonymised data

On this page: anonymous, publication, share, transfer, open science, open data, FAIR data
Date of last review: 2023-03-09

If (part of) the data are truly fully anonymous, they are not classified as personal data anymore: from a privacy perspective, you can publish this anonymised (part of the) dataset in a data repository without restrictions.

The data should indeed be fully anonymous. Here you can find how you know that your data are anonymous. In this preprint, you can find some examples of poorly anonymised (hence still personal) datasets in the field of psychology. It can be very difficult to fully anonymise personal data, so when in doubt, we recommend to always treat data as personal.

Just because data are no longer subject to the GDPR, it does not mean that there may not be other concerns for sharing data publicly. For example:

• publishing the data may not be ethically responsible when the data can be used to discriminate against a group of people.
• data may be someone else’s intellectual property.

Publish your data in a data repository and include sufficient documentation and an open license to your dataset, to make your data FAIR. This way, others can find, access, understand and reuse your data.

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Data Privacy Handbook

The information presented here is provided as is, with no guarantees of accuracy or completeness. For the most up-to-date information, please refer to your privacy officer, the university website or intranet. We cannot be held responsible for any negative consequences due to incorrect interpretation or use, and inconsistencies with policies/views of other institutions.

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