The Digital Economy Act (DEA) gained Royal Assent on the 27th April 2017 and makes substantial amendments to the Statistics and Registration Service Act (SRSA) 2007. This webinar focuses on the the impact of this new legislation and introduces the application process to access the data.

This new legislation provides certainty and clarity for public authorities and researchers on data available for research and the Bill (Act) creates a gateway for public authorities to access data in the public interest. Under the DEA, data access operates through a trusted third party model where an accredited processor links, de-identifies, and makes data securely available to accredited researchers for accredited projects via safe settings such as the UK Data Service Secure Lab.

The data are stored on a remote access secure platform at the UK Data Archive, hosted at the University of Essex. From here, accredited UK academic researchers can obtain controlled access to a wide range of data for approved research projects via a secure research portal. All project applications are assessed by data access committees to ensure that the proposed use of the data complies with the data owners' rigorous data governance and ethical protocols.

In the first part of the webinar, the UK Data Service Secure Lab team will discuss the impact of the DEA and what this means for access to a wide range of de-identified data. They will then introduce the wide range of de-identified data that are available in the Secure Lab under the DEA gateway.

In the second part, they will outline the accreditation and application process and will provide some hints and tips for how to put together a successful application.

This webinar will be useful for researchers looking to explore the range of controlled data available. It will also be useful for researchers applying to access secure data made available via different legal gateways through the UK Data Service, and are interested in learning more about the application process.

This webinar will last 40 minutes with 20 minutes for questions and answers at the end.

Recordings of UK Data Service webinars are made available on our YouTube channel and, together with the slides, on our past events pages soon after the webinar has taken place.