Sensitive data

Biodiversity data may be sensitive because they reveal the locations of threatened species, or other information that cannot be shared openly. Typically, the data provider is responsible for filtering out sensitive data before publication to SBDI. However, SBDI does support mechanisms that obfuscate public data and restrict access to original data.

Sensitive biodiversity data are observations of species that are threatened, or data that reveal information that cannot be released publicly for other reasons. SBDI is focused on sharing open biodiversity data. Filtering out sensitive data is typically the responsibility of the data provider.

However, SBDI does provide more sophisticated mechanisms for sensitive data on Swedish biodiversity. Based on the extent and severity of threats, Swedish species have been classified into different protection levels. “Sensitive species” are those species identified as deserving some level of protection against free data sharing.  Access to data on sensitive species is restricted to protect the species from harmful human activity that could arise if those data were publicly available. SBDI can help to handle sensitive species observations by obfuscating public data and restricting access to the original data to authorized users.

More information on this topic can be found on our help pages for sensitive data. The support for sensitive data in SBDI is under development and we recommend that you contact our Support Center for up-to-date information on how to best approach sensitive data.