Impact of Privacy Law on National Research Data Repositories in South Africa

A number of countries around the world have instituted privacy laws that relate to how personal information and data is governed. These privacy related laws can have unintended effects on data repositories that institutional or even of national importance. The Data Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa (DIRISA) was established by the South African government to provide a national research data storage facility for South African researchers to have easy and trusted access to research data. DIRISA is currently piloting a national research data repository that is based on MetalNX and IRODS. The repository can be used by South African researcher to perform tasks such as uploading and downloading datasets that are annotated with metadata and/or has unique persistent identifiers. Most recently the South African government has instituted the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI) act. The impact of the POPI act towards the national research data repositories in South Africa such as DIRISA need to be investigated to ensure that national research data repositories meet the requirements of privacy laws such as the POPI act. The purpose of this presentation is to present the findings on how South African National Research Data Repositories are meeting POPI act regulations.