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Advancing Ocean Knowledge and Data Transparency - national jurisdictions

A Global Survey on Offshore Industry Data Sharing Practices

Collecting ocean data is key to managing ocean health and a sustainable ocean economy. Industry-generated data can fill critical gaps—but which countries require industries to share it? And what happens to the data once shared?

Private industries collect and share ocean data based on regulations and licensing, but practices vary widely. In some cases, sharing isn’t required at all.

To map global data-sharing practices, two surveys—one for the private sector and one for national agencies—will assess regulations and industry contributions beyond legal requirements.

This initiative is led by HUB Ocean, on behalf of:

By understanding current data collection, management, and reporting, we can:

✅ Promote transparency in ocean data sharing

✅ Identify and address data gaps

✅ Improve data-sharing practices

✅ Strengthen collaboration across industries, governments, and science

Findings may help refine regulations, encourage industry participation, and drive a global shift toward open data-sharing—advancing ocean knowledge, sustainability, and innovation.

Your responses will be anonymous and handled with strict confidentiality. The outcome of this survey will be made publicly available. The survey will be open till the end of 2025 to ensure time for cascading it through countries and companies.

Let’s put all ocean data to work for a healthier ocean and a sustainable future!
1.On behalf of what country could you provide knowledge about ocean data collection and sharing below?
2.What role does your governmental institution plays?
3.What is your role/function in the organization?
4.Does your country’s national jurisdiction require private ocean industries to share ocean data with relevant national agencies?
5.If “Yes” above in Q4 , what mechanism is imposed and enforce this data sharing requirement? (Open answer.)
6.If “No” above in Q4, please elaborate on why there are no data sharing requirments? (open answer)
7.If ‘Yes’ above in Q4, does your national jurisdiction require private ocean industries to make specific ocean data directly available through openly or freely accessible data repositories?
8.If yes above in Q7, please elaborate which openly or freely accessible data repositories? (open answer)
9.What types of ocean data does your national jurisdiction require private companies to report to national agencies or openly or freely accessible data repositories?
10.Does your national jurisdiction have a functioning national data infrastructure (e.g. a national oceanographic data centre or a national node of the Ocean Biodiversity Information System) to receive and host ocean data shared by private industries?
11.If yes above in Q 10, could you please provide a link to your national data infrastructure?
12.In what data-formats is the ocean data to be reported to a national agency as a response to regulatory requirements?
13.Do you require enough supporting information to ensure that data submitted from the private sector can be reused? Such as the instruments used in data collection, instrument calibration dates and protocols, data processing steps and methods. Please describe the required supporting information below.
14.Is it required to share full ocean datasets, or is sharing metadata sufficient?
15.Does your national jurisdiction have routines in place to verify compliance requirements to share the data?
16.If yes above, could you please elaborate what practices are in place?
17.What could be done (improving the process and/or policy) to make sharing of industry data more successful in your country?