Data Sharing Agreement

is an agreement that sets out a common set of rules to be adopted by the various organisations involved in a data sharing operation.

The data sharing Agreement should minimally document the following:

• the purpose, or purposes, of the sharing
• the potential recipients or types of recipient and the circumstances in which they will have access;
• the data to be shared;
• data quality – accuracy, relevance, usability etc;
• data security;
• retention of shared data;
• individuals’ rights – procedures for dealing with access requests, queries and complaints;
• review of effectiveness/termination of the sharing agreement; and
• sanctions for failure to comply with the agreement or breaches by individual staff.