🧠 Data Privacy Handbook

To the Data Privacy Handbook To the tool overview

What?

The Data Privacy Handbook is an open-source, community-driven and practical guide on handling personal data in scientific research. It consists of a knowledge base that translates the General Data Protection Regulation to scientific practice, an overview of tools and techniques relevant for research, and use cases to draw inspiration from.

For whom?

The Data Privacy Handbook was primarily written for Utrecht University researchers and research support staff. However, much of the content, including the overview of tools, is likely also useful for other institutions in the Netherlands or even other institutions within the European Union.

Why?

Current knowledge about privacy law, privacy-related tools and practical strategies to enhance privacy are greatly scattered. At Utrecht University alone, there is a knowledge base on the intranet, information on the RDM support website as well as scattered information gathered by data supporters at different faculties, which differ in their depth and practical usefulness. With the Data Privacy Handbook and the tool overview, we aim to summarize all this knowledge and tools into one central place, which users can use to get started with data privacy. By having a curated, actionable resource that outlines the basics of data privacy, we hope to additionally reduce the burden on support staff. They can then shift their focus towards meeting more complex privacy-related needs.

How?

The first version of the Data Privacy Handbook was written on a chapter-by-chapter basis, with input from privacy officers, data stewards, and other data support staff at Utrecht University. Future updates on the Handbook will be done through GitHub, where the Handbook is hosted. If you want to contribute in any way, please visit the GitHub repository, where we outline the contributing guidelines for the Data Privacy Handbook. The tool repository is a separate GitHub repository, which is also open for feedback from the community.