OpenRiskNet e-infrastructure terms of use

Effective date: 20 November 2019

OpenRiskNet is a project funded by the European Commission within Horizon 2020 EINFRA-22-2016 Programme (Project number 731075) aiming to develop an open e-infrastructure providing resources and services to a variety of scientific communities requiring risk assessment.

Definition of terms used in this document

Processing = means any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction.

Controller = means the natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data.

Anonymisation = the processing of personal data in such a manner that the personal data can no longer be attributed to a specific data subject. Note: data uploaded in OpenRiskNet are fully anonymous to the researchers who receive or use them and also to data provider, who doesn’t have the link back to identify individuals.

Pseudoanonymisation = the processing of personal data in such a manner that the personal data can no longer be attributed to a specific data subject without the use of additional information, provided that such additional information is kept separately and is subject to technical and organisational measures to ensure that the personal data are not attributed to an identified or identifiable natural person. Note: data uploaded in OpenRiskNet are fully anonymous to the researchers who receive or use them, but contain information or codes that would allow others (e.g. data provider) to link them back to identifiable individuals.

Data = the term ‘data’ in this document may refer to biological data, toxicity data, genomic data, anonymised images, metadata, etc. It does not refer to data that contains identifiable information such as name, phone number, or date of birth.

Personal Data = any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.

Data Owner = the ‘data owner’ is the individual researcher or investigator or body of researchers or investigators that produced the original data (‘data controller’). The ‘data owner’ has the responsibility of authorising further use of the data.

Data Provider = the ‘data provider’ is the individual researcher or investigator or body of researchers or investigators that makes data available for access and use within the OpenRiskNet e-infrastructure.

Data User = the ‘data user’ is the individual researcher or investigator or body of researchers that processes data through the OpenRiskNet e-infrastructure.

About the OpenRiskNet e-infrastructure

OpenRiskNet is an e-infrastructure for the harmonisation and improved interoperability of data and software tools in predictive toxicology and risk assessment. It aims at supporting safe-by-design product development and risk assessment of drugs, chemicals, cosmetic products and nano materials by integrating existing toxicology databases and in silico tools and combine them to workflows for predicting hazard, exposure and risk.

It combines:

Web services providing data or analysis, processing and modelling tools communicating over well-defined and harmonized application programming interfaces (APIs);
An interoperability concept and framework for general and specific services integration by consortium members and associated partners;
A featured platform for predictive toxicology and risk assessment for end users (e.g. toxicologists, risk assessors and regulators using case studies).

OpenRiskNet e-infrastructure includes data management systems that make available existing and open data sources mainly from in vitro human and animal and in vivo animal experiments to all stakeholders in a harmonised way.

OpenRiskNet e-infrastructure commitment and privacy policy strive for making computational tools and data as accessible as possible to the scientific community, while protecting the interests of participants from whom the data originate with regard to Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) and within the scope of their consent. These Terms of Use reflects OpenRiskNet commitment to provide this service and impose no additional constraints on the use and transfer of the contributed data than those authorised by the data owner and provided by the data provider.

Data providers and data users of OpenRiskNet e-infrastructure

Data providers and users of OpenRiskNet e-infrastructure have a number of responsibilities and obligations, such as the obligation to respect participant confidentiality. Researchers and data managers accessing the data and even more providing data as an OpenRiskNet service have a custodian role, to ensure the careful and responsible management of the information. They have an obligation to operate in conformity with the requirements of their own institution, and fulfil all necessary national and international regulatory and ethical requirements during data generation (in vivo, in vitro and in silico), preparation for sharing and ongoing management of the resources. They also have obligations to the OpenRiskNet e-infrastructure, the integrity of their own research, as well as the funders and the wider research community, to carry out high quality, ethical research.

Use of OpenRiskNet e-infrastructure

All users have an obligation of confidentiality and must conform to the data protection principles to ensure that data is processed in compliance with the legal and ethical requirements.
The data owners must ensure that they have sought and obtained, where necessary, all appropriate approvals, ethical and legal, for the data collected. OpenRiskNet will provide information on the approval procedure and status, whenever this is provided by the data owner or data provider and collection is technical feasible. Listing of the information does not imply that OpenRiskNet guarantees the accuracy of any provided information.
For in vivo animal data, the data owner must ensure that national guidelines for their welfare and care during the collection of data have been followed.
OpenRiskNet does not guarantee the accuracy of any provided data.
OpenRiskNet has implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security which we deem appropriate, taking into account the sensitivity of data we handle. However, the data provider holds sole responsibility for the usage and distribution of data.
OpenRiskNet requires all data provided or used in the OpenRiskNet infrastructure being anonymised before submission.
Computing of personal and sensitive data on OpenRiskNet e-infrastructure should be run internally by the users on their secure cloud infrastructures under appropriate firewalls. OpenRiskNet will not hold any liability for any loss or damage to data.
While we will retain our commitment to the privacy of sensitive data, we reserve the right to update these Terms of Use at any time. When alterations are inevitable, we will let you know by placing a notice on our website and update the "effective date" at the top of this Terms of Use, but you may wish to check each time you use the website. The date of the most recent revision will appear on the ‘OpenRiskNet e-infrastructure terms of use’ page. If you do not agree to these changes, please do not continue to use our services. We will also make available an archived copy of the previous Terms of Use for comparison.

Any questions or comments concerning these Terms of Use can be addressed to: openrisknet@edelweissconnect.com.

Confirmation of Acceptance of the terms of use

By ticking the box, data providers and users certify that they will abide by this Ethical Governance Framework, Terms of Use and its stipulations, and that appropriate ethical approval and/or consent are in place prior to use of the data within the project. The acceptance of these conditions along with other registration data will be collected by the project coordinator and stored centrally.