Restriction of Access to Archived Data

Currently Qualidata of the ESDS requires Athens authentication to access its database. Athens is a service funded by the Joint Informations Systems Committee (JISC) which regulates access to resources over the UK's education and research network (JANET). Any student or researcher wishing to access e-journals or other online resources is required to request an Athens account from their university. This system has proved secure enough to comply with the Data Protection Act as it only allows members of academic institutions to access the protected data (in some cases data can be made available for commercial purposes on the agreement of the data registrar and/or data service provider) . Research respondents should be made aware of the current level of security in place for the protection of data and that no other third parties, such as the media or private research establishments, can gain legitimate access without permission. For additional security researchers (and their host institution) that own the copyright to the deposited data can request that they be involved in the vetting procedure before a reuser is provided with access.

Those wishing to access data within the archive must agree to the End User Licence Agreement which as previously stated affords data depositors and their research participants with particular protections. In relation to access the agreement states that no reuser has permission to give access to the data collection to another who is not a registered ESDS user. Further protections can be added if the data includes sensitive material including a requirement for a resuer to seek permission from the data depositor before passing on information to other ESDS registered users or utilising data for teaching purposes.

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