Potential Dangers with Open Access Data Files in the Expanding Open Data Movement

Scientific papers with large data sets tend to be supported by open access online supplementary files that fortify verification, reproducibility, and accountability. Such files complete the background picture of a scientific manuscript and tend to be presented to the public in a variety of common file formats, such as Word, Excel or PDF. Yet, such files may potentially also present a risk since their content is most often not protected and could be easily mined by dishonest parties. These concerns, as well as the policies in place by seven leading STM publishers, are discussed with a view to increasing awareness. Simple solutions are available to reduce the risk, but surprisingly, these have not been applied widely yet.