We intend to post details about our information sharing agreements if, in the meantime, you have any questions about any agreements we may have, please contact the data protection team. Data exchange agreements involve intellectual property rights, but very thin rights. Databases are protected by copyright, but they have very thin or weak copyright protection in the United States, but enjoy more robust protection elsewhere. For more information, see the intellectual property clause. In the absence of strong intellectual property rights that protect data and databases in the United States, data-sharing agreements work best when they are part of a broader agreement between research partners. An individual agreement on data sharing should not replace the larger agreement between the partners, but complement and support a particular aspect of the broader agreement. A detailed overview of the role of a data sharing agreement within a large company between research partners is available at Data Sharing: Creating Agreements, Paige Backlund Jarquín MPH, Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute & Rocky Mountain Prevention Research Center. A data sharing agreement is an agreement between a party that has useful data (the broadcaster) and a party that seeks data for research on (the recipient) in which the disclosure provider agrees to share its data with the recipient. These could be two universities that would agree to exchange data to collaborate in the field of research, could include one or more private companies active in research or development, and could even include a government agency that works with a private organization.

Information exchange agreements are agreements that establish the legal basis for the use of personal data by the public sector, across traditional organisational boundaries, in order to improve strategies and provide better services. The law rightly introduces safeguards on the use of personal data (Data Protection Act, Human Rights and Customary Law) and organisational costs are necessary to meet these conditions. It is important that these protective measures exist and are properly applied. . . .