Data Research, Access and Governance Network (DRAGoN)
The modern world is increasingly dependent on data. It is central to our lives, directly in our own experience and indirectly through the way organisations use data. Much of the data is personally confidential, at the point of collection or when combined with other data. Often the confidentiality of data is unclear: are street observations by citizen scientists confidential? Photos of one’s family on social media? Facial recognition? Automatic number plate recognition? Data used to train machine learning systems? Is ‘sensitive’ or ‘personal’ the same as ‘confidential’?
The confidentiality of data has a substantial effect on the way it is managed, perceived and exploited. This spills over into the management and use of open data, or data which is confidential for other reasons, such as commercial confidentiality: ethics, public perceptions, data security can also be just as important.
Data Research, Access and Governance Network (DRAGoN) is a multi-disciplinary research group aiming to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia, think-tanks, industry and government.

About
Find out more about the aims and research themes of the Data Research, Access and Governance Network (DRAGoN).
Members
The Management team and members of Data Research, Access and Governance Network (DRAGoN).
Projects
The main current and completed research projects within Data Research, Access and Governance Network (DRAGoN).
Events
Current and past Seminar Series and events from Data Research, Access and Governance Network (DRAGoN).
Publications
View the Working Papers and key publications from members of Data Research, Access and Governance Network (DRAGoN).
Contacts
We welcome enquiries about our work - please get in touch.
Data Research, Access and Governance Network (DRAGoN) blog
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DRAGoN Host a weeklong international workshop, reviewing the current gap between Data Governance in high income countries (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This workshop will run with two parallel cohorts to accommodate both Eastern and western hemispheres. What Gap? When it comes to research and policy development on the governance of confidential research … Continue reading "Bridging the Gap: Governance of Confidential Research Data in Low- and Middle-Income Countries"
Bridging the Gap: Governance of Confidential Research Data in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
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There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Protected: The inadvertently revealing statistic: a systemic gap in statistical training?
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Data protection is important – so what’s the problem? Written by Cara Kendal Statistical Disclosure Control is an important process where statistical data is protected before being released to make sure that no identifying information is made publicly available. This is a large task that is often completed by several people. One of the primary … Continue reading "Disclosure Control of neurominority groups – Protection or Erasure?"
Disclosure Control of neurominority groups – Protection or Erasure?
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We are partnering with Eastside Community Trust to bring you a night of short, attention grabbing talks followed by a Q&A. Free and open to all at Easton Community Centre. What’s the Big Idea? Eastside Community Trust and University of West of England present four attention – grabbing, interesting talks, with a Q&A sessions throughout. Location … Continue reading "Event: What’s the big Idea?"
Event: What’s the big Idea?
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DRAGoN runs a very popular webinar series that brings academics together with practitioners and members of the public facilitating conversation to flow from theory to practice. The next run of these webinars are due to start at the end of February 2023. In the first of three blogs looking back on the Data Ethics and … Continue reading "Past DRAGoN Webinars: The importance of solidarity in Data sharing."
Past DRAGoN Webinars: The importance of solidarity in Data sharing.
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The ADR UK funded Wage and Employment Dynamics (WED) initiative that aims to provide new insights into the dynamics of earnings and employment in Great Britain has made a new dataset available. Accredited researchers can apply to use the de-identified Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) – 2011 Census linked dataset from the Office for … Continue reading "New linked dataset available to provide insights into earnings and employment in Britain"
New linked dataset available to provide insights into earnings and employment in Britain
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Written by Elizabeth Green (UWE Bristol), Felix Ritchie (UWE Bristol) and Amy Tilbrook (University of Edinburgh) Many researchers in the UK working with confidential data attend the ‘Safe Researcher Training’ course (SRT). This training course was commissioned by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in 2017 and is (so far) the only accredited training programme … Continue reading "Teaching researchers about data protection law: a terrible idea"
Teaching researchers about data protection law: a terrible idea
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The digitalization of health and medicine has engendered a proliferation of new collaborations between public health institutions and data corporations, such as Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. Critical perspectives on this “Googlization of health” tend to frame the risks involved in this phenomenon in one of two ways: either as predominantly privacy and data protection … Continue reading "DRAGoN Seminar: Sphere transgressions: Risks and Benefits of the Digitisation of Health"
DRAGoN Seminar: Sphere transgressions: Risks and Benefits of the Digitisation of Health
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