How We Protect Sensitive Data

All data served through BIEN is carefully vetted to ensure that endangered species and other sensitive information is not made publicly available.

We maintain two versions of the BIEN database, public and private. The public database is accessed through open-use applications such as RBIEN and biendata.org, while access to the private database is restricted and only available on a by-request basis. In the public database, locality information for endangered species (see below) is hidden. Locality information includes latitude, longitude, and narrative locality descriptions. In addition, datasets with restricted access are excluded from the public database (for example, plot datasets whose owners require access by request only). All information is present in the private database.

The following sources are used for embargoing sensitive species:

• CITES: All taxa listed in Appendices I, II or II
• IUCN: All taxa listed as "EN" or "CR" in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (Ver. 3.1, 2nd Ed.)
• US federally listed species: Observations of species listed as threatened or endangered at the US federal level are embargoed if the observation is within the United States.
• US state listed species: Observations of species listed as threatened or endangered (plus other state-specific categories indicating sensitive status) at the state level are embargoed if the observation is within that state

Embargo exceptions:

• The 2017 CITES list includes five complete families: Orchidaceae, Didiereaceae, Cactaceae, Cycadaceae, Zamiaceae. To avoid embargoing all species in the large families Orchidaceae and Cactaceae, we do not hide occurrence data for orchids and cacti if (a) they are not listed by species in CITES or any of our other sensitive species sources (see above) AND (b) they are not in any of the genera included in CITES at the genus level, AND (c) they are represented by 30 or more observations in the BIEN database. This exception does not apply to the remaining three families; all occurrence data is embargoed for all species of Didiereaceae, Cycadaceae and Zamiaceae.

We also preserve any sensitive species embargoes present in the original data. Thus, in the public database, we embargo any records which the data provider embargoed on their website or data portal.

We are committed to doing our best to honor all our participants' data needs and security issues.