Respecting Indigenous Data Sovereignty when utilizing tribally identifiable data collected by universities, scholarship organizations, and healthcare providers

Universities, Scholarship Organizations, and Healthcare Providers in the United States have a long and fraught relationship with Indigenous Peoples. While policies and practices have continued to improve with the advent of Indigenous Data Sovereignty and other principled areas that drive self-determination, challenges remain. These educational institutions still possess enormous amounts of data related to Indigenous individuals for internal use in university systems rather than share out with relevant Indigenous Nations. Universities, Scholarship Organizations, and Healthcare Providers collect Tribally Identifiable Data on their students and clients for items such as scholarships, access to healthcare, and allocation of monetary funds for various events and activities. The key piece of data on Indigenous Peoples to be discussed is the collection and storage of Tribal Enrollment status, citizenship, and descendancy. This is used by the above organizations to determine the types of assistance Indigenous people are eligible for. Despite the high volume of enrollment data which is used to determine access to scholarships and healthcare by these organizations, it is unclear to what extent they collaborate with Tribal Nations on the protection, use, and ownership of these data. This paper will give a detailed breakdown of these actors, the types of data collected, the limitations of Tribal Nations to hold the data, and the challenges of respecting Indigenous Data Sovereignty when it comes to Tribally Identifiable Data for a university population. This perspective article argues that the principles of IDSov must be respected and non-tribal entities must do all they can to ensure Tribal Nations receive access to their data.