How data governance principles influence participation in biodiversity science

Biodiversity science is in a pivotal period when diverse groups of actors–including researchers, businesses, national governments, and Indigenous Peoples–are negotiating wide-ranging norms for governing and managing biodiversity data in digital repositories. The management of these repositories, often called biodiversity data portals, can serve either to redress or to perpetuate the colonial history of biodiversity science and current inequities. Both researchers and Indigenous Peoples are implementing new strategies to influence whom biodiversity data portals recognise as salient participants in data management and use. Two notable efforts are the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and CARE (Collective benefit, Authority, Responsibility, Ethics) Data Principles. Actors use these principles to influence the governance of biodiversity data portals. ‘Fit-for-use’ data is a social status provided by groups of actors who approve whether the data meets specific purposes. Advocates for the FAIR and CARE Principles use them in a similar way to institutionalise the authority of different groups of actors. However, the FAIR Principles prioritise the ability of machine agents to understand the meanings of data, while the CARE Principles prioritise Indigenous Peoples and their data sovereignty. Together, FAIR and CARE illustrate a broader emerging strategy for institutionalising international norms for digital repositories about who they should recognise as having a formal role in determinations of the fitness-for-use of data.