The Care Principles and the Future of Indigenous Data

The ethical framework that has developed around research involving Indigenous communities and Indigenous data — including genetic data derived from ancestral remains — has been partially codified in what are known as the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance.

These principles, developed through engagement with Indigenous communities and researchers, provide a framework for thinking about how data generated through research involving Indigenous peoples should be governed, with attention to collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility, and ethics.

The CARE Principles are complementary to the more familiar FAIR Principles for scientific data sharing — which emphasize findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability — but they address the specific context of Indigenous data with attention to community interests that the more generic FAIR framework does not.