FAIR, Open and Free does not mean no restrictions

FAIR, open and free are rarely user correctly to describe access to assets.  In fact, assets - expected to be or described as FAIR, open and free - are subject to many restrictions.  The major ones are:

(1) Security: to protect the asset from unavailability and any process from corruption, related to curation.  Security breaches may be criminal.

(2) Privacy: to protect any personal data within or about the asset. The General Data Protection Legislation is highly relevant here and severe punishments are available.

(3) Rights and licences: the asset may be subject to claimed rights (such as copright or database right or even patenting) and also to licensing which may be more or less restrictive;

(4) Authorisation: within an Authentication, Authorisation, Accounting Infrastructure (AAAI), authorisation of authenticated user access in a given user role (owner, manager...) to assets in appropriate modes (read, update...) possibly within a certain time period and subject to asset licensing is only permitted;

(5) Terms and Conditions: the system controlling the assets may have associated terms and conditions of use including - but not restricted to - liability, user behaviour, use of cookies.

In EPOS we are drawing together all these aspects into an integrated policy-driven set of mechanisms in the system including rich metadata, policy and licence documents, informed consent at the user interface and an AAAI system based on the recommendaions of AARC (https://aarc-project.eu/ ).