Fair Usage Policy

The Secure Research Service (SRS) is a Trusted Research Environment (TRE) provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It enables accredited researchers access to de-identified, controlled microdata for research that delivers clear public benefits. This Fair Usage Policy (FUP) ensures that the SRS is used responsibly, ethically, and in a way that maintains service integrity and equitable access for all users. It outlines acceptable behaviours to help maintain system performance and support the needs of the research community.

Over the past five years, the Secure Research Service (SRS) has seen substantial growth in the number of datasets made available in the SRS and in the number of users and projects utilising the service. This enables more researchers to conduct high-quality, impactful research for the public good. The SRS aims to support all researchers equitably, but in practice, there can be occasions where disproportionate demand from some researchers puts strain on SRS resources.

The purpose of the Fair Usage Policy (FUP) is to establish clear expectations of responsible researcher behaviour, promoting efficient use of SRS resources. By setting out what constitutes fair and appropriate use, the FUP helps the SRS maintain a high standard of service, protect capacity and ensure that support to researchers is distributed fairly and transparently.

The SRS is provided free at the point of use for accredited researchers working on accredited projects. In return, researchers are required to comply with the expectations set out in the FUP and their accredited researcher assurance registration. This compliance is essential to maintain the viability of the SRS as a trusted platform and to uphold continued success for the research community.

By discouraging disproportionate or avoidable use of SRS resources, the policy significantly reduces the likelihood that a single project or group of users negatively affects others. It also promotes the more efficient use of SRS staff resource to help speed up project approval times and responses to queries, thereby increasing the predictability and stability of the service.

This web page outlines the behaviours researchers are expected to exhibit while interacting with the SRS service and teams.

Secure Research Service (SRS) teams are in place to support researchers accessing data in the SRS (see Section 7: Contact us for details). Researchers can help the SRS teams to provide an efficient support service through effective communication and by reading the relevant guidance.

Communication

Researchers are expected to:

• provide clear and complete information up front in queries
• provide timely responses to communication from SRS teams
• proactively update SRS teams about changes to their contact details
• contact the appropriate team

Insufficient information from researchers may be returned for clarification, which can affect response times and delay issues being resolved.

When researchers take a long time to respond to communication from SRS teams, it delays the processing of their queries. Researchers who are proactively working with SRS teams will have their queries prioritised. 

If SRS teams always have up-to-date contact information for all members of a research project team, they can get in touch with them easily.

Researchers should ensure they contact the most appropriate team for their query (see Section 7: Contact us). By contacting the wrong team, researchers can expect a delay in response as the query will be sent between teams internally.

Following instructions and reading guidance

There are many resources to help researchers throughout their project application and while using data in the SRS. Repeated queries that are covered in existing guidance or requests for extensive one-to-one support, place avoidable strain on SRS resources.

Researchers are expected to consult self-service resources where appropriate before contacting SRS support teams.

This includes:

• reading guidance such as the project application guidance within The Project Accreditation System for the SRS (PASS) or the Become an accredited researcher guidance

• utilising the guidance and information on the SRS web page 

• making use of dataset information from the Metadata Browser or any dataset guidance documents

• making use of documents found within the SRS core libraries

To ensure an efficient and fair service for all users, researchers must follow established processes and submit complete, accurate, and well‑considered project applications.

Project application quality

Researchers are expected to submit project applications to a high standard of accuracy and completeness.

Researchers are expected to:

• carefully consider data requirements

• adhere to guidance

• be responsible for completing their own applications

• be proportionate when making external data requests

Researchers should ensure they have read the resources available on all data requested to ensure their research is feasible and the data requested are proportionate, justified and aligned with their project aims and objectives.

Applications must follow the guidance on The Project Accreditation System for the Secure Research Service (PASS). Applications failing to comply with guidance or omit required information significantly delay approval times.

Researchers are responsible for drafting their own applications. Secure Research Service (SRS) teams cannot write or substantially redesign applications on behalf of researchers. Requests for SRS staff to complete or construct applications fall outside of fair usage.

Requests involving large, complex, or bespoke external datasets require substantial time and specialist input from SRS teams. Researchers should only submit such requests when necessary and must provide full justification and supporting documentation. Excessive or speculative requests may be declined or delayed to protect service capacity.

Project application queries and amendments

During the application process, the SRS Project Application and SRS Project Feasibility teams will work with researchers to refine and clarify applications so they can progress through approval.

Researchers are expected to:

• minimise avoidable amendments

• provide timely responses to requests

Researchers must ensure their application accurately reflects their intended work at the point of submission. Significant changes to scope, data requirements, or the research team after submission may require reassessment and will delay project progress.

Where a researcher has been asked to clarify or amend anything on their original application or addendums, they are expected to proactively work with SRS teams to resolve issues or answer queries.

Please note the SRS teams will withdraw your project application or change requests if we have not heard back from you after two months from the latest communication from the SRS teams.

The Secure Research Service (SCS) Statistical Support team provides statistical disclosure checks to researcher outputs, ingests and transfers to support the safe use of data. The output checking service ensures all outputs leaving the secure environment meet disclosure control requirements. The ingest and transfer process allows researchers to add or transfer material to their SRS project from outside of the SRS platform or between projects within the SRS.

The following expectations apply to ensure fair usage of this service across the SRS user base.

Frequency and complexity of requests

Researchers must submit requests for outputs, ingests and transfers at a reasonable frequency.

The SRS sees reasonable behaviour as:

• only submitting necessary requests

• avoiding large or complex requests

• notifying the SRS of a predicted surge in requests

Large quantities of files submitted by researchers "just in case" or speculative requests are not considered fair use.

Requests require significant additional staff time and will not be processed without appropriate justification. Where such cases are necessary, requests should be produced to a high standard to prevent longer turnaround times.

Researchers should provide the SRS Statistical Support team with one month prior notice if they predict a surge in outputs, ingests or transfer requests for their project. This enables the team to effectively plan and ensure capacity in advance.

Submitting requests

In some cases, requests are blocked if the SRS teams are not provided with adequate information or have statistical disclosure concerns.

The SRS sees reasonable and fair behaviour as:

• checking files for disclosure risks prior to submission

• submitting well-prepared and complete requests

• responding promptly to queries or feedback from SRS teams

• thoroughly addressing all disclosure concerns in amended submissions

Researchers must check their own files for disclosure risks before submitting them to the SRS.

Request forms should be completed and files should be clearly labelled, in accepted formats with no hidden sheets.

Slow responses from researchers delay checks and create queue backlogs that affect all users.

Partial fixes or resubmitting files to the SRS that still contain the same issues are not acceptable and are considered disproportionate use.

Please note each additional round of rechecking will start the checking process again, increasing turnaround times for projects that show persistent non-compliance. Failure to comply with these requirements may result in outputs not being processed until the necessary changes are made.

The Secure Research Service (SRS) provides shared storage and server memory to support research in the SRS. This space is finite and the disproportionate use of servers can significantly affect performance and availability for other SRS users. Researchers must manage their storage and memory usage responsibly.

Storage management

Researchers are expected to actively manage the size of their project and avoid consuming excessive or unnecessary space.

Researchers are expected to:

• undertake regular housekeeping

• avoid unnecessary data copies

• avoid using the SRS as a datastore

• optimise data handling

Researchers should periodically review their project areas and delete files no longer in use or those that have been superseded. This includes unused codes, temporary files, backups or outdated files. All users will be asked to review their project areas before additional space is provided.

Researchers should not copy shortcuts or linked datasets into their working folders. These copies take up a significant space.

The SRS is not designed to provide long-term or large-scale storage for researcher data or backups of work. Projects that store unnecessary duplicates or treat the SRS as a data repository will be asked to reduce their usage. Failure to do so may result in access being removed.

Server memory is served across all users, so high usage by one project can cause slow performance or session instability for others. Researchers should optimise their data handling and avoid loading full datasets unnecessarily. Where possible users should chunk their data to avoid large memory allocations and ensure that temporary files are overwritten and not stored throughout analysis.

Servers that are reported for slowness or crashes are investigated to pinpoint users whose sessions are using high memory. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will then investigate what code is being utilised and review user sessions to see what the cause of the memory use is.

Please note the ONS periodically undertakes reviews of project activity to ensure that our storage is being utilised as optimally as possible. When our reviews of the environment dictate the need for more storage, we will identify large or inactive projects to archive to free up drive space. Minimal or no activity over a six month period will be designated for potential archiving.

As drive space is a shared resource between user projects, large projects (100GB or more) will be prioritised for archiving. If an archived project is returned to a live state, the responsible research team must agree to reduce this project size where possible to ensure optimal storage use for all users. Archived projects are not accessible once moved.

Administrative and software requests

The SRS provides administrative and technical support to services to ensure that researchers can work effectively within the SRS. However, some requests can be highly resource intensive and require expertise to resolve.

Researchers are expected to:

• be mindful of specialist intervention

• be aware of software availability

Issues such as recovering accidentally deleted files, queries about system features and tool usage, or changes within a project area require specialist support which is often provided by multiple teams.

The SRS has a myriad of software available and many analytical needs can be met with existing tools. Users should consider software already available before requesting additions or new versions. Please note that not all software packages can be supported in the SRS.

The Secure Research Service (SRS) Customer Support team can help you with:

• questions, concerns, or exception requests on the Fair Usage Policy

• general queries and service information

• initial log-in credentials

• password resets 

• project extension requests 

• additional researcher requests

• Safe room and SafePod enquiries

To contact the SRS Customer Support team, email srs.customer.support@ons.gov.uk.

If your query relates to initial log-in credentials or a password reset, call +44 1329 447871. The phone line is open from 9am to 11am (Monday to Friday).

For output, ingest and transfer requests and queries, email statistical.support@ons.gov.uk.

For queries on project applications and issues with The Project Accreditation System for the Secure Research Service (PASS), email srs.project.applications@ons.gov.uk.  

For feasibility queries on project applications and datasets, email srs.project.feasibility@ons.gov.uk.

For software issues and updates, and SRS system issues and updates, email srsoperations@ons.gov.uk.           

For Assured Organisational Connectivity (AOC) enquiries, check if your organisation has AOC and begin an AOC application by emailing srs.connectivity@ons.gov.uk.