Indigenous Data

Data involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples has many legal and ethical considerations and needs to be managed and shared with care. 

What is Indigenous Data?

In Australia, Indigenous data is data generated, intentionally or not, by, about, or for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Indigenous data refers to information, in any format or medium, collected, analysed, stored, and interpreted within the context of Indigenous individuals, collectives, populations, entities, lifeways, cultures, knowledge systems, lands, biodiversity, water and other resources.

It includes data collected, used, or stored by any agency, department, laboratory, organisation, corporation, statutory body, university or research institute, conducted by, with, and about Indigenous people or peoples, and data that Indigenous communities have generated and maintained themselves (Indigenous Data Network, 2023).

It’s also important to understand the role of self-determination and the need for people to be involved in managing cultural heritage in ways that are meaningful to them. This includes how their cultural, linguistic and medical data is used.

Indigenous Data and the ARDC

The ARDC is working with the Indigenous Data Network (IDN) through the Improving Indigenous Research Capabilities project so Indigenous communities can grow their technical capability and resources to manage their own data. The IDN leverages developments in the data sciences to maximise the optimal collection, access and use of data resources for community empowerment. This work is part of the ARDC’s HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons. Indigenous Data Governance (ID-Gov) is considered across all HASS & I RDC focus areas including: 

• Improving Indigenous Research Capability (IIRC)
• Language Data Commons of Australia (LDaCA)
• Social Sciences Program
• ARDC Community Data Lab

The CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance underpin the ARDC and partners work on Indigenous data. Learn more about the CARE Principles.

Protocols and Research Guidelines

Data about First Nations peoples sometimes involves a mediated access level, requiring potential users to meet specific conditions. Researchers, data managers and data custodians will need to uphold key competencies in which to respect Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing that differ from Western data practices in order to manage information and knowledge in step with specific cultural requirements. 

Read on to explore resources to help you manage Indigenous data ethically.

General Advice for the Australian Context

• Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies’ access and use policy and ethical research guidelines 
• Australian and Torres Strait Islander Library, Information and Research Network protocols
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Archives protocols
• National Health and Medical Research Council’s ethical conduct guidelines and Keeping research on track II
• Torres Strait Regional Authority cultural protocols.

Guidance from Individual Communities

• Lowitja Institute: Taking Control of Our Data: A Discussion Paper on Indigenous Data Governance for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People and Communities (2024)
• Ninti One Protocol for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Knowledge and Intellectual Property [pdf]
• Ethical research – AIATSIS
• Ninti One Aboriginal Research Engagement Protocol Template [pdf]
• Aboriginal Knowledge and Intellectual Property Protocol: Community Guide [pdf]
• Guidelines to Good Manners via the British Medical Journal
• Yolŋu research dhukarr: Yolŋu and Balanda working together in research, encouraging culturally responsive research processes

Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Biocultural (BC) Notices and Labels

TK and BC Notices and Labels were created by Local Contexts, a global initiative that supports Indigenous communities with tools that can reassert cultural authority in heritage collections and data.

TK Notices are tools for institutions and researchers to identify Indigenous collections and data and recognise Indigenous rights and interests. TK Notices were developed to create pathways for partnership, collaboration, and support of Indigenous cultural authority.

TK Notices can be applied to websites, publications, datasets, museum exhibitions, items in a collection, genetic samples, and more. Some Notices can be added by non-Indigenous data custodians

There are 3 categories of TK Notices:

1. Engagement Notice: used to indicate a researcher or institutions is committed to equitable engagement and ethical partnerships with Indigenous communities
2. Disclosure Notices: used to identify Indigenous collections and data and to recognise there could be accompanying cultural rights, protocols, and responsibilities. Disclosure Notices can function as place-holders on collections, data, or in a sample field until a TK or a BC Label is added by a community.
3. Collections Care Notices: used to recognise the cultural protocols that govern the care, display, and access to cultural materials.

TK Labels is an international metadata label system that can be customised by Indigenous communities and organisations. 

The labels add existing local protocols for access to and reuse of recorded cultural heritage that is digitally circulating outside community contexts and control. They help non-community data users understand these materials’ importance and significance to the communities. 

TK Labels can be used to add information that might be considered ‘missing’, including the name of the community that remains the creator or cultural custodian of the material, and how to contact the relevant family, clan or community to arrange appropriate permissions.

Biocultural (BC) Labels extend the TK Label initiative to genetic resources and within the biological and genomic data sciences. The BC Labels define community expectations about appropriate use of biocultural collections and data. 

The labels use icons that are consistent internationally and cannot be changed. But the text can be translated into different languages. 

Indigenous Data Tools and Platforms

There are a growing number of tools and platforms available for Indigenous communities, and those who work with their data, to help store, maintain and organise the data in culturally sensitive ways.

• The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures has a Nabu catalogue platform that can be reused by others.
• The Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language has a portable data repatriation system that can be used in remote communities with no internet.
• Nyingarn makes manuscript sources of Australian Indigenous languages available as searchable and reusable text documents to support language revitalisation.
• Mukurtu is a free, mobile and open source CMS built with Indigenous communities to manage and share digital cultural heritage.

Further Resources

• The CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance
• Global Indigenous Data Alliance 
• National best practice guidelines for data linkage activities relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people 
• Charles Darwin University’s videos on access, cultural protocols, and Indigenous research methodologies
• Indigenous Data Sovereignty [book]
• Maiam nayri Wingara Indigenous Data Sovereignty Collective
• United Nations Declaration On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples
• Guidelines for First Nations collections description, Tui Raven