Project: FIN-CLARIAH
Grant agreement: Research Council of Finland no. 358720
Start date: 01-01-2024
Duration: 24 months
WP 2.1: Report on Framework for processing copyrighted data for verification of research
Date of reporting: 28-11-2025
Report authors: Mietta Lennes (UH)
Contributors: Sirpa Kovanen (UH), Krister Lindén(UH), Martin Matthiesen (CSC)
Deliverable location: https://www.kielipankki.fi/support/data-management/dela/
Keywords for the deliverable page: copyrighted data, personal data, social media data, data protection, safeguards
Researchers in Social Sciences and Humanities often need to use data collected from social media platforms. Currently, the reuse of social media data for research purposes is legally challenging. Some part of the content originating from social media is usually protected by copyright or related rights. Social media postings (often including images and videos) may also contain personal data. The terms of use of social media platforms tend to be volatile and non-transparent, and individual permissions cannot be requested due to the large numbers of potential rightholders and data subjects.
Since neither the related EU regulations nor the Finnish legislation are well established in current legal practice, the possibilities for depositing research data from social media must be considered on a case by case basis. It may be possible to archive data obtained from social media and make it available for restricted purposes under certain conditions, according to Section 13 b of the Finnish Copyright Act (i.e., Tekijänoikeuslaki 13 b §), concerning data mining.
Two social media datasets, Finnish presidential elections 2024 in social media (somepressa24), collected by researchers at UHEL, and Nordic Tweet Stream 2013-2023 (nts) collected by a team at UEF, both teams participating in the FIN-CLARIAH project, have been suggested for deposition to the Language Bank of Finland. Using the potential redistribution of these two resources as an example, a review of the current legal risks and restrictions was performed by the legal advisors at UHEL. The negotiations for depositing the first dataset are nearly complete, and the dataset is to be delivered to the Language Bank in December 2025 and to be made available under a RES category license in early 2026. After the first experiences with somepressa24 at UHEL, we aim for a similar deposition agreement with UEF regarding the nts dataset.
The Language Bank of Finland offers frameworks, instructions and technical solutions for deposition agreements and end-user licenses, for access management (the Language Bank Rights system at CSC), and for data encryption or secure processing in a restricted environment if necessary (SD services at CSC). Step-by-step instructions to using the Sensitive Data services (cf. Deliverable 2.1.1.), including the secure SD Desktop environment, are now available both in Finnish and in English for researchers in Social Sciences and Humanities. The Language Bank also collects and shares the links to the privacy notices published by the users of the Language Bank.
FIN-CLARIAH project has received funding from the European Union – NextGenerationEU instrument and is funded by the Research Council of Finland under grant number 358720.
