During the past decade, publications in the field of economics have increasingly used leaked data to better describe and explain the phenomena around us. Just in the past eight years, at least twenty-two economics papers have been published using leaked financial data, with the majority of them having been published in the last three years.

Even though it is clear that financial leaks have become increasingly available to academic researchers over the past years, it is also apparent that academia has lagged behind in its ability to apply appropriate ethical and data-protection standards to such data. As a result, a number of academic institutions such as the American Economic Association have started to issue policies about the academic use of illegally obtained data, in an attempt to minimize the risks associated with its use.

Following Annette Alstadsæter’s keynote lecture at this year’s congress, this special session will dive deeper into the ethical and practical considerations that researchers face today when using leaked data in their work. By hearing the first-hand experiences of researchers that have previously worked with leaked data, the participants will have the opportunity to better understand and discuss in an open panel format: I) what are the different sources of leaked data; II) the utilization of large-scale leaks and how to construct relevant datasets from these; III) assessing the validity and legitimacy of acquired data; and, IV) the challenges and opportunities in GDPR compliance, and V) how to ensure data integrity and security of the team members.