Indigenous Data Sovereignty
Storytelling has always been an essential part of Indigenous culture. It's a powerful means of passing on knowledge, history and traditions to new generations. In other words, it's a traditional way of passing on Indigenous data. So before getting into what Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDSov) means, we will begin by telling the story of how the Nishnawbe Aski Nation took control of its data in hopes to shape the destiny of its people.
Indigenous data is information in any format that impacts Indigenous lives at the collective and individual levels, including settler colonial science and Traditional Indigenous Knowledge. Also included is information about Indigenous Peoples themselves (for example, health data, financial data and socio-economic data), their lands, their resources, their history, and their culture.
Case study: The Nishnawbe Aski Nation Remoteness Quotient
In January 2016, a landmark decision shook the foundations of Canada's child welfare system. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) ruled that Canada had discriminated against First Nations children, youth, and families, particularly in the way it funded child and family services in remote areas. It wasn't just about money—it was about access, equity and survival. The ruling pointed that Canada's failure to account for remoteness in its funding formulas exacerbated the hardships for First Nations communities, especially those tucked away in the vast and isolated northern landscapes.
Enter the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, an Indigenous organization representing 49 First Nations communities in northern Ontario. In 2016, it joined the CHRT case, shining a light on the challenges of remoteness—how it amplifies already entrenched systemic barriers, from housing to healthcare, and stretches scarce resources beyond their breaking point. It was clear that remote First Nations communities weren't just underserved; they were practically forgotten.
To quantify this remoteness, the Nishnawbe Aski Nation commissioned, in 2019, the Phase II Remoteness Quotient Report. This wasn't just a report; it was a lifeline, a data-backed plea for justice. It sought to answer one vital question: How much funding is truly needed to offer the same level of child and family services in remote communities as in more accessible regions? The findings were stark. Providing equitable services in these regions required significant increases in funding, given the inflated costs of delivering care to places that can be reached only by air or seasonal roads.
But the report did more than highlight financial gaps. It demonstrated how housing insecurity, food scarcity, and unemployment—exacerbated by remoteness—were tearing at the fabric of these communities. The lack of adequate services was not just a symptom of distance; it was structural discrimination on full display.
At the time of writing, the CHRT case is ongoing.
What is indigenous data sovereignty?
The Phase II Remoteness Quotient Report is a powerful example of Indigenous Data Sovereignty in action. As a growing global movement with deeply local impacts, IDSov is driving similar stories of empowerment and self-determination in Indigenous communities around the world. Each IDSov story is shaped by the unique world views and values of the community that embraces it.
While there is no single definition of IDSov, it broadly refers to the right of Indigenous Peoples to govern the collection, ownership, and use of data related to their lands, communities, and cultures. Many of those advocating for IDSov seek full data self-governance, giving Indigenous communities complete control over their data. This means redefining the relationship with data, extending beyond research to include data held by governments and industries for governance, operational and financial purposes.
While we may use the term "Indigenous" in a general sense in this article, Indigenous Peoples are not a homogenous group. Canada's Indigenous population consists of three distinct groups—First Nations, Inuit, and Métis—each with their unique cultures, languages, histories, and traditions, and there are many subpopulations within these groups.
IDSov may also include the repatriation of data held by the Crown, empowering Indigenous communities with the information needed to manage health, education and other essential services as they move towards self-governance. This includes access to historical documents vital for treaty negotiations and unresolved land claims, ensuring Indigenous nations can make informed decisions about their future. The Nishnawbe Aski Nation did this by using federal funding and community-level data to identify the true costs of providing child welfare services in remote areas, aiming to inform funding decisions and address the discrimination faced by isolated First Nations communities.
With IDSov, data collection and information management must align with the practices and culture of the Indigenous community represented in the data. It recognizes them as right holders as opposed to stakeholders, and partners as opposed to subjects or consultees. This is especially important because of the significant distinctions between Western and Indigenous approaches to research and therefore research outcomes.
Progress is needed
Indigenous Peoples have always collected and managed their own data. However, many Indigenous communities have found themselves subject to data collection, data governance, and data use by settler governments, which could be constituted as knowledge theftDefinition 1. These communities have largely been denied the right to control how their data is gathered, used and represented.
According to the First Nation Indigenous Governance Centre, First Nations also face limited data capacities, namely:
- a lack of quality data
- cultural barriers
- important data gaps
- fragmented data sets and difficulties assessing data sets
- legislative and policy barriers to data access
- jurisdictional divides by governments (federal and provincial)
- data sets are held by other governments (federal and provincial)
As such, First Nations have little ability to contribute to and benefit from Canada's statistical and information systems, impacting their ability to govern, make informed decisions, plan, and protect their communities. Such was the case for the Nishnawbe Aski people, who had to commission the Phase II Remoteness Quotient Report to close the data gaps and respond to the needs of their community when faced with discrimination.
Bias and discrimination in data collection have deep roots in colonial practices, and this is evident in the way data on Indigenous Peoples has historically been gathered. Across colonized nations, Indigenous data has focused on differences, disparities, disadvantages, dysfunction, and deprivation—often referred to as 5D data. This deficit-based approach has skewed portrayals of Indigenous communities, emphasizing lower education levels, poorer health, and socio-economic struggles. These portrayals have often been used to justify high rates of incarceration, victimization and suicide among Indigenous populations.
While Indigenous Peoples do not dispute the statistics on health, education, and socio-economic status, the issue lies in how the data is framed. Lacking cultural and social context, this data is often interpreted through a colonial lens, leading to policies and programs that fail to meet the real needs of Indigenous communities. For data to be meaningful and effective, it must be interpreted with an understanding of Indigenous world views, histories and cultural contexts.
Indigenous data in Canada are often reported within a deficit model with an overemphasis on negative findings and often frame Indigenous Peoples within a discourse of risk, problems, and vulnerability, rather than affirmative or strength-based approaches to documenting progress and positive population identifiers.
Legislative barriers further hinder progress towards IDSov. In Canada, gaps in information policies often sideline Indigenous priorities, preventing the full implementation of data governance. For instance, under the Library and Archives Canada Act, archived records can be made public after 20 years, which could be cause for concern since many records include sensitive Indigenous and colonial data. This could allow data to be used or shown without Indigenous consent.
Similarly, the Privacy Act protects only personal information, failing to recognize the collective privacy rights of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. This means the Crown retains unilateral control over who can access Indigenous data, under what conditions, and for what purposes, with no obligation to consult or seek approval from the communities affected.
The Crown makes unilateral decisions about who can access the data, under what conditions, and for what purposes. There is no obligation on the Crown to consult or seek First Nations approval to share their data.
These legal frameworks also allow for the unauthorized use of Traditional Indigenous Knowledge, even though settlers have historically dismissed, criticized, or even attempted to erase its value.
Indigenous Peoples own their knowledge and culture, and 'everyone else must seek permission to use them' – even in cases where non-Indigenous laws might imply that something is 'public domain.'
Moreover, Indigenous communities continue to be subjected to colonial classification and identification systems in research. These systems ignore the diversity of languages, cultures, and governance structures across Indigenous nations. Instead, they impose Western legal and policy frameworks that classify and identify Indigenous Peoples in ways that do not align with their own cultural identities. The term "Indigenous" is often used as a catch-all label for convenience, undermining the unique histories and experiences of specific groups, clans, and communities. As a result, data often fails to accurately represent the realities of these populations, perpetuating harmful biases.
Indigenous Peoples cannot attain data sovereignty if they are subjected to information systems that denigrate, exploit and misidentify them. While IDSov will not necessarily give power back to Indigenous Peoples, it's pushing governments and organizations to implement, for example, data capacity building, data sharing and devolution agreements, and co-governance models to advance Indigenous self-determination.
Decolonizing data
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (UN Declaration Act) became law in June of 2021. It has catalyzed efforts to address data governance challenges faced by Indigenous Peoples and helps ensure that Canada's laws and policies align with Indigenous rights, promoting fairness, transparency, and respect for Indigenous Peoples. Of course, this involves advancing Indigenous data governance.
Canada's commitment to advancing a whole-of-government approach to the management and sharing of Indigenous data is highlighted in the 2023–2026 Data Strategy for the Federal Public Service.
During the first phase (2022–23 to 2024–25), First Nations will establish Data Champion Teams. These teams will engage with rights holders to develop plans for and establish the First Nations–led network of national and regional information governance centres envisioned in the 2020 First Nations Data Governance Strategy. Inuit and Métis Nations will develop their own data strategies, identifying their long-term data and data capacity needs based on their unique histories, priorities and perspectives.
To further implement the principles of the UN Declaration Act and advance reconciliation, the Government of Canada introduced the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Action Plan (2023-2028), which outlines 181 measures, developed in consultation with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, to achieve the Act's objectives. Measure 30, for example, focuses on IDSov, committing to support Indigenous-led data strategies that empower First Nations, Inuit, and Métis to manage, protect, and use their data. This includes facilitating timely data sharing through nation-to-nation, Inuit-Crown, and government-to-government partnerships while safeguarding individual privacy. By doing so, the government aims to enhance Indigenous control over data and foster Indigenous-led research, decision-making and genealogical research.
In line with these commitments, Statistics Canada, in collaboration with Indigenous Services Canada and other departments, launched the Transformational Approach to Indigenous Data (TAID) to strengthen Indigenous data capacity and support Indigenous knowledge systems as a vital part of self-determination. TAID collaborates with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities to enhance their data governance, ensuring they have the tools to address policy challenges and work towards closing socio-economic gaps. Similarly, Indigenous Services Canada is working to transfer data governance and services to Indigenous organizations through its service transfer mandate, empowering them to design programs that reflect their unique needs and realities. This aims to prevent situations like those that led to the Phase II Remoteness Quotient Report, when inadequate resources and data forced the Nishnawbe Aski Nation to pursue legal action to address the child welfare needs of their underserved and overlooked people in remote areas.
While federal departments are working diligently to maintain Canada's commitment to IDSov, Indigenous communities are working on their own data governance strategies. For example, the First Nations Information Governance Centre, in collaboration with First Nations communities, has developed the OCAP® principles—Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession. OCAP® is a community-specific data governance strategy that affirms that First Nations have exclusive control over their data, from collection to use and sharing, ensuring that they manage their data according to their values and priorities.
The OCAP® principles
- Ownership refers to the relationship of First Nations to their cultural knowledge, data, and information. This principle states that a community or group owns information collectively in the same way that an individual owns his or her personal information.
- Control affirms that First Nations, their communities, and representative bodies are within their rights to seek control over all aspects of research and information management processes that impact them. First Nations control of research can include all stages of a particular research project-from start to finish. The principle extends to the control of resources and review processes, the planning process, management of the information and so on.
- Access refers to the fact that First Nations must have access to information and data about themselves and their communities regardless of where it is held. The principle of access also refers to the right of First Nations' communities and organizations to manage and make decisions regarding access to their collective information. This may be achieved, in practice, through standardized, formal protocols.
- Possession: While ownership identifies the relationship between a people and their information in principle, possession or stewardship is more concrete: it refers to the physical control of data. Possession is the mechanism by which ownership can be asserted and protected.
While First Nations have formalized the OCAP® principles, Inuit and Métis are making progress in their data sovereignty journeys. Organizations like Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated are leading Inuit data governance initiatives through strategies like the National Inuit Data Strategy. Similarly, the Métis Nation has acknowledged the need for a data sovereignty framework, as highlighted in their 2022 environmental scan. Although the development of Métis-specific governance strategies is in its early stages, both Inuit and Métis efforts underscore a growing commitment to ensuring Indigenous Peoples can control their data in alignment with their values and goals.
More generally, the Global Indigenous Data Alliance designed the CARE principles for Indigenous Data governance (which stands for Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility and Ethics) "to reflect the crucial role of data in advancing Indigenous innovation and self-determination." The CARE principles don't only look at who collects and owns Indigenous data, but how it's being stored and released. They were created to be used alongside the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) principles to mitigate FAIR's lack of consideration for power differentials and historical contexts. The FAIR principles advocate for open data without considering power differentials and historical contexts.
There is an increased push for greater data sharing, which can be seen in the widely accepted FAIR principles… However, these principles create tension in regards to how Indigenous Peoples' data is protected, shared and used. The FAIR principles are focused on how to make the technology more efficient, and ignore the fact that data comes from people and needs rights and protection. While the FAIR principles are data-centric and ignore the impact on ethical and socially responsible data usage, including power differentials and historic conditions considering the acquisition and usage of data, the CARE principles centre on the well-being of Indigenous Peoples and their data, and can be implemented alongside the FAIR Principles throughout data life cycles to ensure collective benefit.
The CARE principles
- Collective Benefit states that data ecosystems should be designed and function in ways that enable Indigenous Peoples to derive benefit from the data. Institutions must actively support and facilitate the use of data by Indigenous communities. This would promote the decision-making power of Indigenous nations by providing them with better understanding of their peoples, territories, and resources.
- Authority to control refers to the empowering of Indigenous Peoples and communities to determine how Indigenous cultures, land, resources, knowledges, and people are represented and identified within data. Indigenous Peoples have the right to access data relevant to their world views, to develop cultural governance protocols for Indigenous data, and to be active leaders in the stewardship of and access to Indigenous data and knowledge.
- Those working with Indigenous data have a responsibility to share how the use of the data supports Indigenous self-determination and collective benefit. This responsibility includes providing access to resources to generate Indigenous data, supporting the development of an Indigenous data workforce, and ensuring that the creation, interpretation, and use of data is respectful to Indigenous communities.
- Ethics refers to the maintaining of ethical data processes that prioritize the well-being and rights of Indigenous Peoples across all stages of the data life cycle. Ethical data should strive to minimize current and potential future harm. Data should not stigmatize or portray Indigenous Peoples, cultures, or knowledge in terms of deficits.
Government of Canada initiatives, OCAP® and CARE principles, along with other community-specific data governance strategies, are guiding the shift towards a more inclusive and respectful approach to data governance, aligning with Indigenous values. But this is just the beginning. There is still a need, among other advancements, for Indigenous-led data capacity building, legal reforms and devolution agreements to be able to implement IDSov at scale.
All in all
The case of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation shows how the absence of Indigenous data governance can perpetuate colonial relationships and cause unintentional harm and neglect.
IDSov is about nation building, self-determination, self-government, and restoring nation-to-nation, Inuit-Crown and government-to-government relationships. By advancing IDSov and implementing its frameworks, we can prevent the continuation of colonial dynamics in the data space.
It's crucial to recognize that data shapes not only our world view but also the structures within it. By reflecting on and improving our information management systems, we can ensure that the communities the data represents are both served and protected.
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