Date created: | Last Updated:

Category: Project

Description: In the modern era, the near impossibility of true anonymization means we must provide tangible recommendations for researchers who need to share de-identified, person-level data that could potentially be re-identified due to the presence of quasi-identifiers. While various repository aggregators like Re3data and DataCite Repository Finder provide lists of data repositories, navigating these can be cumbersome when trying to locate options for depositing restricted data. These listings rarely include certain necessary details, making the process of recommending third-party repositories to researchers time-consuming – or even limited, and we often end up relying on a short list of well-known repositories. An additional challenge is the difficulty of identifying repositories that mediate access via data usage agreements, where the repository handles access requests to ensure potential users meet established security and privacy requirements and have taken the necessary steps to protect confidentiality and commit to appropriate data use. As part of a capstone project for the Data Services Continuing Education Program, we identified and created a spreadsheet of restricted data repositories with mediated access processes for researchers. While our project scope was limited to the social sciences and US based repositories, in sharing this work, we hope others will continue to contribute to this work and expand on it.