Third party data and data linkage
Section 7 of 10
In most instances, you cannot publish data that you did not collect or generate because you do not have the legal right to do so. As a data re-user, you can evidence your published research claims by citing the original source of the data in all the articles, presentations and any grant applications which are based upon the data.
Exceptions to this are data that have been licensed by the data owner to allow redistribution (e.g. under a Creative Commons or other open license) or in situations where you have paid the rights holder for permission to redistribute parts of a dataset (i.e. this is permitted under the terms of a paid-for licence).
If you are in either of these situations, remember that, like original researchers, secondary data users have an obligation to ensure that the data are published responsibly and respectfully, and that the legal requirements of GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 are met and the privacy of participants is safeguarded.
Data linkage is the merging of two or more separate datasets that contain data about the same people or subjects. The same potential rights issues apply to linked datasets. You should always check if the use of a third party dataset permits data linkage and any restrictions on providing access to this information.
