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How to protect privacy in open data

Nature Human Behaviour volume 6, pages 1603–1605 (2022)Cite this article

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When sharing research data for verification and reuse, behavioural researchers should protect participants’ privacy, particularly when studying sensitive topics. Because personally identifying data remain present in many open psychology datasets, we urge researchers to mend privacy via checks of re-identification risk before sharing data. We offer guidance for sharing responsibly.

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Acknowledgements

C. Hartgerink (Liberate Science GmbH) also contributed to this work and was originally included as a co-author. He opted to withdraw from the author list because this piece could not be published under an open access licence. Our work was supported by a Consolidator Grant (726361 IMPROVE) of the European Research Council (ERC) and an Open Science Fund grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO 203.001.155).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Methodology and Statistics, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Jelte M. Wicherts, Richard A. Klein, Sofie H. F. Swaans, Esther Maassen, Victor H. B. T. G. Peeters, Myrthe de Jonge & Franziska Rüffer

  2. Department of Educational Science, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Andrea H. Stoevenbelt

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  1. Jelte M. Wicherts
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Correspondence to Jelte M. Wicherts.

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Wicherts, J.M., Klein, R.A., Swaans, S.H.F. et al. How to protect privacy in open data. Nat Hum Behav 6, 1603–1605 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01481-w

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