Project description
The Data Privacy Project was a data support effort within Utrecht University, the Netherlands. It was funded by Utrecht University’s (FAIR) Research IT program and a Digital Competence Center grant from the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).
The problem
Knowledge about handling privacy-sensitive data in scientific research has appeared limited or at best, scattered - both among researchers as well as research support staff. This could be because different disciplines or projects encounter different issues and/or approach them from different angles. Moreover, there is more personal data in scientific research than previously thought, and questions about translating privacy-related legislation into practical guidelines are getting more and more ubiquitous and complex.
Project aims
The aim of the Data Privacy Project was to develop multidisciplinary knowledge of, tools about, and experience with how researchers can and should deal with personal data, with an emphasis on practical techniques, computational tools, legal policies and user experiences.
Project deliverables
The project’s goals were to:
- 🧠 Create a knowledge base and an overview of available tools for researchers to learn about handling personal data. The Data Privacy Handbook has realized this deliverable.
- 🛠️ Realize or expand a number of tools to solve concrete problems of research projects in this area. For this, we have taken on use cases that are typical of various privacy-related questions, and created Python packages to pseudonymize and synthetize data.
- 🔍 Perform qualitative and quantitative investigations into the current practices and needs of Utrecht University research staff concerning the handling of privacy-sensitive data.
- 💪 Develop training materials for researchers and support staff about dealing with personal data and the use of the available tools.
To make sure the deliverables were FAIR and actionable, we collaborated closely with privacy, data, software and security experts within Utrecht University.