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Data protection, rights and access: Freedom of information

Freedom of information refers to a body of legislation that establishes the right of the public, or individual members of the public, to be given access to information from public bodies. Although exemptions exist, these may be subject to a public interest test upon appeal.

There have been high profile cases involving research data from UK Universities:

  • University told to hand over tree ring data "Queen's University in Belfast has been told by the Information Commissioner to hand over 40 years of research data on tree rings, used for climate research." April 2010 From: BBC News
  • University scientists in climategate row hid data "The university embroiled in the 'climategate' scandal refused to make its scientific data available to the public in breach of freedom of information laws, it has emerged." January 2010 From: The Telegraph
  • Tobacco firm demands university's research on children and smoking "Stirling University fighting attempt by Philip Morris to gain access to research under freedom of information laws." September 2011 From: The Guardian
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PILOT - Writing a data management plan by Edina, University of Edinburgh modified by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra/introduction.html