New technologies provide incredible opportunities in data collection, analysis, and sharing. They offer the potential to do good as well as harm. Sensitive data can be used to identify, locate, repress, or discriminate individuals, and even lead to physical injury, imprisonment, or death. Also, new technologies come with new threats such as cyber-warfare, digital crime, and government surveillance.

Implementing a responsible approach to data is a complicated but necessary task. Principles of privacy, consent, limitation, transparency, security, and accountability are of increasing importance for organizations working with data. The LU report identifies the core components of a responsible approach to data and provides guidance on how to implement them in practice. In 2018, OAM Consult peer-reviewed a report by students of Leiden University (LU, NL) on the use of data in the humanitarian and development sector.