Critical Data for Science: Why a Research Data Act?

Public authority data, i.e. data that accumulates in the course of administrative acts or is specifically collected by public authorities for precisely defined purposes, is subject to special protection – for good reasons: personal data reveals a great deal aof personal information, and data on companies might be used to deduce their business secrets. Economic and social research however, is not concerned with individual cases. It looks for large social or economic contexts and therefore looks into government data as a whole. Individuals and companies become an anonymous data point in their statistics. The results of this research can inform political decisions, objectify public debates with provable figures and bring hidden developments to light – if researchers are given access to these data and have permission to link them with other date. Here, the current legal situation in Germany does not present a uniform picture. Practical hurdles in data access are also criticised by representatives of independent research. A negotiation process is taking place between those who produce and share data, those who want to conduct research on this data and the data protection authorities, who must ensure that information about individuals remains safe with the authorities.