Solutions for the secure use of human data

CSC is building an infrastructure in which human data obtained from Finland’s biobanks and research organisations has been pre-processed and described and saved in a secure way. The parties responsible for sharing the data can automate their authorisation process with the CSC platform. This improves licensed availability of data for research and healthcare purposes. 

In a project funded by the Academy of Finland, an infrastructure is created that meets the requirements for storing and using sensitive data. The project creates solutions to facilitate quick and easy access to various data for by researchers. The data consists of clinical register data, genomic data and material related to bioimaging. The project is participated in by not only CSC but also the bioimaging infrastructure Euro-BioImaging, THL Biobank and the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM).

The data would be stored in CSC’s sensitive data infrastructure. A space would be allocated to researchers in which the data and computing power are in the same place. Researcher could only access data to which authorisation has been obtained by the data owner. The project also makes use of federated data management developed by CSC. ELIXIR AAI and REMS are applications developed by CSC for the managing users in the ELIXIR infrastructure.

THL Biobank’s part in the project is to design management processes for national health data for research. The objective is to enable researchers and students easier access to material in Finnish biobanks. This would also mean that data could be transferred securely from biobanks to CSC’s sensitive data environment and sharing it with those who have been authorised to access it.

More information:

Read more about the Finnish ELIXIR node infrastructure

Tommi Nyrönen
Program Director, ELIXIR Node in Finland
tommi.nyronen@csc.fi