Enhancing Data Governance in Trusted Research Environments: Mitigating Risks Beyond Re-identification

Trusted Research Environments have been pivotal in facilitating secure and ethical access for research to data deemed too sensitive or detailed to be shared outside of their secure enclaves. The increased availability of these data has facilitated vital research that can benefit our society. But these data come with risk and a TREs role is to mitigate this. Previously much of the focus of our data governance has been on preventing the re-identification of data subjects, maintaining an excellent track record in confidentiality breaches. However, in recent years we have seen the data landscape changing rapidly, with a wide array of new data types and analytical methods. This changing landscape brings new possibilities for harms which extend beyond simple re-identification. With this changing landscape, it’s time to re-evaluate our data governance to ensure we can continue to protect those who trust us with their data. This presentation will focus on work at TREs such as the Secure Data Center in Germany to review, re-evaluate and improve our data governance frameworks. This work utilises the Five Safes framework to steer the development of technical infrastructure, new training and the redefining of projects to ensure that we can ensure safe and ethical data use in a changing world.