Science Through the “Golden Security Triangle”: Information Security and Data Journeys in Data-intensive Biomedicine.

Abstract

This paper talks about ways in which infrastructure for biomedical data-intensive discovery is operationalized. Specifically, it is interested in information security solutions and how the processes of scientific research through data-intensive infrastructures are shaped by them. The implications of information security for big data biomedical research have not been discussed in depth by the extant IS literature. Yet, information security might exert a strong influence on the processes and outcomes of data sharing efforts. In this research-in-progress paper I present a developing, in-depth study of a leading information linkage infrastructure that is representative of the kind of opportunities that big data technologies are occasioning in the medical field. This research calls for IS to extend the discussion to consider, building on the empirical detail of intensive case studies, a whole range of relations between provisions for information security and the processes of scientific research and data work.