Senate is the platform of choice for accelerating data partnerships. Companies can safely govern their data share, without risking data privacy or security. It is private by design, as we do not allow any personally identifiable information (PII) to be uploaded or shared with others. Approval workflows and the ability to execute data license agreements on platform ensure only authorized users can access data for agreed uses.

Organizations use Senate to share and control how private datasets can be used for analytics within and between organizations. Insights gained from analytics not only have the power to transform decision making but also contribute to wider industry innovation or government policy. Participants in the Data Republic ecosystem come from a wide range of industries such as banking, insurance, loyalty, healthcare and government. Datasets can be shared internally between departments or with other organizations who are part of the Data Republic ecosystem. With embedded governance workflows, Senate ensures only authorized users can request and access datasets for permitted use.

Organizations can pay a subscription fee and license Senate for use. Organizations who have licensed Senate are called Senate Licensees. These organizations can create and host projects by inviting other guest organizations to participate in data collaboration projects on Senate. Organizations not part of the Data Republic ecosystem must sign the Senate Guest License (a type of end user license) to participate in projects they are invited to.  You can agree any fees that may be payable with your host licensee. Fees will not be levied to you by Data Republic, unless you agree to fee terms on the platform.

Organizations outside of the Data Republic ecosystem may be invited as guests to participate in data collaboration projects on Senate. In order to maintain trust within the ecosystem, these organizations participating as guests must sign a type of end user license agreement called the Senate Guest License. The Guest License governs a Guest organization’s interactions on Senate. The Guest organization’s continued access and use of the platform will be subject to authorization by the hosting organization who has invited them to Senate.

Guest organizations who have signed the Senate Guest License can only work with the host organization who has invited them to the Senate platform to collaborate. The Guest organization’s continued access and use of the platform will be subject to authorization by the hosting organization who has invited them to Senate.

If the Guest organization wishes to leverage Data Republic’s ecosystem to work with other Data Republic participants on platform, the Guest organization may wish to license the Senate Platform for use by their organization. To learn more about the Senate Platform agreement, please click here.

A successful data collaboration by two organizations usually has a champion driving and managing outcomes from both sides. This ensures that any blockers (related to risk, compliance, legal, resourcing or approval processes) are identified early so that the data collaboration initiative can be executed in time and within budget. A strong data partnership between both organizations ensures that data initiatives are set up for success. This means that the data goals and strategy within each organization support the execution of the data sharing initiative and applications of data insight for benefit by all those involved. For more information, see Data Partnerships.

Projects are created on Senate to govern any data sharing initiative between two or more organizations. Through Projects, the project owner can control who has access to their data, the terms of use and access to their datasets, as well as how their data will be accessed. 

Once the project is set up, people added, data packages loaded and license terms agreed, a Workspace is requested and launched. This is a Windows Virtual Machine where datasets are analyzed.

Due to the sensitive nature of most datasets and to prevent misuse of such datasets, most data owners on Senate specify that their datasets can only be accessed via secure Workspaces (locked down virtual machines) on Senate used for analytics. For more information, see What is a Workspace.

By opting to enforce data access via Workspaces, data owners can feel comfortable that their datasets are only combined with datasets that are permitted, only authorized users can access the dataset, and only authorized outputs can be taken off the Senate platform for agreed uses.

Workspaces are currently powered by Windows Amazon EC2 instance type. If GPU capability is required please contact Data Republic support@datarepublic.com for further information. For the standard Windows workspace, we currently support and can install R, Anaconda, Python, SQL Workbench, LibreOffice, Sublime, Sumatrapdf, Tableau. For sizing options and further FAQ about workspaces, please refer to Workspaces.

What can be extracted from the Senate platform depends on what has been agreed between your organization and the host organization who has invited you to the Senate project on platform. The terms of data use are formalized in a data license executed on platform by both parties. Both structured (e.g. data tables) and unstructured data (e.g. images, algorithms) can be taken off platform if permitted by the data license agreement for your project.

Senate has several embedded features that govern how data may be used on platform:

1. Data License: is an on platform agreement within a Senate project, that defines how data may be used, what datasets can be combined for analysis, who can access the datasets, how long datasets can be accessed for, pricing, and any special conditions related to what outputs can be created and take off the platform. The data license must be executed and approved by both the data owner and the organisation requesting access to data (Data Licensee) before access to data can be granted. Once executed, the data license agreement is a binding legal agreement between the parties to the license. For more information, please see Data Licenses.
2. Workspace: this is a feature to provide additional assurance to data owners that datasets are only used for intended purposes on platform. Workspaces can be leveraged to control analytics on Senate. A workspace is a secure and locked down environment (virtual machine) in which data can only be accessed by authorized users and analysed on Senate. No data can be loaded or taken out of workspaces without approval by Data Republic. Data Republic will only provide approval for such requests if they align with the agreed conditions of the data license executed by all parties. For more information, please see Workspaces.

Approval workflows are used in Senate to request data output extraction off Senate. Data Republic will approve data output extraction requests, subject to what is allowed in the data license. If the data owner has special approval conditions, this can be included in the Data License agreement for acknowledgement and acceptance by all parties prior to datasets being made available for analysis.

Workspace are Windows or Linux virtual machines (VM) where approved datasets are loaded for analysis. Each governed project space may consist of one or more VMs.

Senate offers a variety of workspace configurations so that analysts can choose the configuration most suited to the analytics they are conducting

For the standard Windows workspace, we currently support and can install R, Anaconda, Python, SQL Workbench, LibreOffice, Sublime. For sizing options and further FAQ about workspaces, please refer to Workspaces.

You can request a login for users here. User access and permissions will be issued according to how each user will participate in the project set up by your host organization. For example, you may be invited to a project where you are required to upload datasets to share; alternatively, you may be invited to a project to request a dataset for intended use and analytics only, and will not be uploading any datasets. The minimum access will be provided to ensure you can successfully execute project tasks.

Support material containing an overview of Senate processes and step-by-step instructions are available for self-guided training. Once users have received their login, we recommend the Get Started page for an introduction to Senate and what to expect in their first data sharing project. The Get Started page will contain links to specific help articles in the Data Republic knowledge base (help.datarepublic.com) to help users collaborate in their first data sharing project. For general support, users can contact support@datarepublic.com or send a chat message on the bottom right of any Senate screen.