FAQ about data protection and notification form

Within 30 days all projects should have received feedback or an assessment.

It is more likely that the assessment will proceed quickly if the notification form is satisfactorily and adequately completed.

Remember to upload the necessary documentation, such as information letter and interview guide, before submitting.

The scope and complexity of the project can also affect the assessment time, as well as when the notification form is submitted during the year. The start of the semester is typically very busy.

We have a general guide for filling out the notification form. In the notification form itself, you will find prompts by holding the pointer over the small question marks.

You can chat with us between 12 noon and 2 PM Monday-Friday. You can also send a direct message to your data protection adviser via the message dialogue linked to the notification form.

If you are a student and are going to register a student project, please consult your supervisor for tips and advice.

You can find a print-friendly version/PDF of your notification form by pressing the "Export" button at the top of the notification form. Here you will also find the assessment, by pressing the button "assessment".

In Chrome and Firefox, save the PDF by clicking "print" and selecting "save as PDF".

You must fill out a notification form. An audio recording records the voice of a person, which is personal data.

Audio recordings of conversations thus involve the registration of personal data. This applies to all recordings made of people talking.

The project must be notified to Sikt if you process personal data at any point. This applies even if all participants will be anonymised in the publication/thesis.

Processing means any process that is performed on personal data.

This includes, among other things, collection, registration, preparation, analysis, transfer, storage, publication and archiving.

If you are not going to collect or process personal data in the project, you do not need to notify Sikt of it.

For a project to be considered anonymous, no persons can be identifiable during any phases of the project.

Note that only researchers and students at institutions that have an agreement with Sikt must notify their projects to us.

Yes, if you are a researcher or student at an institution in Norway that has an agreement with us, and this institution is the data controller for the project.

The data controller institution is the institution that issues your degree. This applies to master's and bachelor's theses.

If you are unsure whether your institution is the data controller, consult the internal data protection officer.

No. Only projects where the data controller institution has an agreement with Sikt must be notified to us.

When you create a project, you are assigned the role of user administrator. As a user administrator, you can share access to the notification form with others.
You can choose to add others as user administrators (i.e. they can further share access), or give them edit or read access.

Persons who are listed as project managers automatically receive an invitation.

Sikt's advisers have read access to the notification form and the project, and we can write messages to you in the message dialogue. We do not have access to make changes to your notification form, or to share access to the notification form with other people.

Persons who are institutional users at the institution to which you belong have read access to both the notification form and the dialogue with Sikt through the Notification Archive. The Notification Archive gives the institution an overview of all its ongoing and previously registered projects.

All projects with associated notification forms created on our server will be displayed on minside.nsd.no. If the project does not appear here, you are probably logged in with the wrong user.

Try to log out, then log in again with the user with which you created the notification form (Feide, Google or local).

Some people experience problems with browsers such as Internet Explorer, Edge and Safari. We therefore recommend using Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.

When you are in the notification form, you can select "English" in the drop-down menu at the top right.

The list in the notification form contains all institutions that have an agreement with Sikt on data protection services (formerly NSD).

If your institution does not appear in the list, this is probably because your institution does not have an agreement with us.

Changes to the project are notified by updating the notification form that has been assessed. After entering the changes, you must return the notification form to the adviser by pressing "Confirm submission" on the "Submit" page.

The adviser carries out a new review, and sends an updated assessment if/when everything is in place. Tips:

• Write a short summary of the changes in the message dialogue of the notification form, then we can quickly familiarise ourselves with the changes and avoid any misunderstandings.
• Remember to tailor the information letter to the participants in line with any changes, if the changes are entered before the data collection process is initiated.

Read more about which changes must be notified here.