Ronald Meijer et al.
4. A case: Open data policy of a Government research institute
At the Research and Documentation Centre of the Ministry of Security and Justice ‐ in Dutch“ Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek‐ en Documentatiecentrum”( WODC) ‐ data is gathered to advise about and to define the current and future research agenda of the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice, to answer policyrelated questions and to indicate the possible implications of research findings for standing policy. For this purpose WODC systematically collects, stores, enhances and provides criminal justice information produced by themselves or external organizations commissioned by WODC( Zuiderwijk et al. 2012).
WODC strives towards transparency, thus investing in trust, while giving priority to protecting privacy. WODC aims to facilitate the reuse of research data, as this may provide the organization with benefits, such as the possibility to scrutinize and validate the data and to decrease the workload of the WODC. WODC works with confidential judicial research and registration data, so that issues as confidentiality and privacy‐sensitivity should be thoroughly taken into account( Zuiderwijk et al. 2012)( Kalidien et al. 2010). WODC therefore has developed a procedure to share data from the collected data as much as possible with other parties, while protecting privacy and in compliance with the restrictions of the privacy protection principles and laws. This procedure is combined with a data infrastructure to manage the contradictions of different values. In two consecutive sections we discuss data infrastructure and ‐procedure.
4.1 Data infrastructure
Data from concluded research projects is collected. Data from those projects that is qualifying for public opening is centrally stored in compliance with the Dutch Privacy Protection Act( DPPA). Privacy sensitive data is deleted unless explicitly needed for further research( longitudinal research, monitoring projects). Public safety registration data is stored in a data warehouse( DW), containing police and justice data, for policy research purposes. A DW ensures a uniform approach to data for interpretation purposes and ensures maximum accessibility. Privacy is protected as the DW is anonymized, i. e. has been stripped of directly identifying attributes, like names, addresses etc. In the DW problems around inconsistencies, reliability, and validity are tackled( Choenni and Meijer 2011b). The archived research data and DW data form the basis of the WODC data request policy.
WODC may decide to the public opening of research data. The research data of WODC is open for everyone once ‐ contented to the high criteria of DPPA and confidentiality matters – it is uploaded on the server of the Dutch Archiving and Networked Services( DANS). Before opening the data from research to public, all privacy sensitive data – which may lead to disclosure directly as well as indirectly ‐ is removed. WODC may permit restricted access to scientific organizations for scientific purposes to privacy sensitive research data. The DPPA allows the( re‐) use of personal or privacy sensitive judicial data, under certain conditions, for scientific purposes. Public safety registration data might be released only for scientific research to scientific organizations. WODC regularly receives individual data requests from scientists for permission to re‐use research data or for an extract of public safety data from the DW. Extracts from the DW may – in principle – be opened, but for scientific research only. WODC gives access to the data by providing highly aggregated data on demand. This data is generated by data experts and concern DW data requests mostly. Each and any request is thoroughly audited by the WODC data request procedure.
4.2 Procedure
The data request procedure is a rigorous procedure which is aimed at sharing data with other parties as much as possible, while thoroughly protecting privacy. With the aid of this procedure we manage to protect privacy sensitive attributes in datasets, in compliance with the security policies.
WODC discerns two subtypes of data requests to contribute to OD and give access to citizens, namely requests for Statistical Information and requests for Data Supply. Statistical Information is aggregated data on which people do not aim to edit the data information. This information can be based on registration as well as research data of WODC. The output provides a minimal opportunity to be edited. Data supply can be subdivided in requests for re‐use of research data from published research or requests for an extract of registration data from the data warehouse( DW).
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