Data Sovereignty & Monitoring App

Tribal governing entities require reliable, relevant, and current data to make sensible policy decisions. A series of legal instruments have been developed to inform, operationalize, and protect Indigenous Peoples rights to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) – a specific right that pertains to Indigenous Peoples. FPIC is recognised in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and reaffirms and asserts Indigenous Peoples’ rights to self governance and self-determination over their collection, use, and ownership of data (UNDRIP 2007). These principles, coupled with the universal right to self-determination, are the foundation to give and withhold consent to participate in research, science, and other projects, promote equitable participation, and protect Indigenous knowledge.

We operate under and uphold the CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility Ethics) Principles and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reproducible) Principles to strengthen Indigenous data sovereignty in our region. The CARE principles for Indigenous Data Governance complement the more data-centric approach of the FAIR principles, introducing social responsibility to open data management practices.

SIGN has partnered with the Indigenous Sentinels Network (ISN), whose mission is to support the collection of Indigenous, Traditional and Local knowledges (ITLK) and scientific information to empower ecosystem- and community-centered natural resource management and decision-making at multiple levels (i.e. generate actionable data along-side creative and broad reaching science communication). ISN is one environmental monitoring network that operationalizes Indigenous Data Sovereignty through practices of Indigenous Data Governance as “the enactment of Indigenous Data Sovereignty referring to the mechanisms that support Indigenous decision-making on how data are controlled, collected, interpreted, accessed, stored, and used” (Walter et al. 2020). 

SIGN’s partnership with ISN has resulted in a SIGN-specific database that features customizable data collection survey forms, audio recording capabilities, and reporting, where our SIGN tribal partners will be able to collect and store data while retaining sovereignty over the data they collect. ISN has over 20 years of experience in Tribal environmental monitoring, data collection, and development of tribally owned environmental monitoring software. ISN remains grounded in goals to rebuild sovereign capacity for the stewardship of lands and waters. ISN has partnered with SIGN, as administered by Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska (Tlingit & Haida), to bring ISN-SIGN Database architecture, data collection methodology, training and capacity building to Southeast Alaska.