Swissuniversities funded project - DSR-DB 2 FAIR 4 reuse

What is DSR-DB ?

The Base de données relative aux décisions cantonales concernant la protection des données (DSR‑DB) is a long‑standing open database that provides access to valuable information about the jurisdiction on data protection law in the Swiss cantons.

Hosted and maintained by the Institute for European Law at the University of Fribourg, it has offered free public access to decisions since 1984, including researcher‑written summaries available in German and French. The database is widely used by legal practitioners, authorities, and academics to explore decisions by canton, date, and thematic categories. 

Why do we need a new version "DSR‑DB 2 FAIR 4 reuse" ?

The project “DSR‑DB 2 FAIR 4 reuse” aims to modernize this resource by introducing robust research data management practices and aligning the database with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).

Funded by swissuniversities, the project will migrate the data to DaSCH (Swiss National Data and Service Center for the Humanities), Switzerland’s national platform for long‑term data preservation, ensuring sustainable storage without the need for new technical infrastructure. This transition is desirable not only for scientific and ethical reasons, but also because it guarantees the long‑term findability of decisions, easy access to the decisions and their summaries, and the interoperability of the database with future legal research projects.

The project will also develop an interface that enables customized searches within the DSR‑DB data. The interface, developed by the University of Fribourg using the Educational Databases solutions (EDDB) solutions, will provide visualization of the data hosted on DaSCH and will also will enable tailored queries and graphical exploration of the case law. By bringing state‑of‑the‑art data governance to a legal research tool, the project strengthens Open Science practices in a field where they remain underdeveloped. Its outcomes will be reusable for similar initiatives across law and the humanities.

Project coordination

To ensure good coordination between DSR-DB and IT Services and to guarantee compliance with established Open Research Data (ORD) principles, the project is coordinated by the Coordination office of documentation centers and Open Science.

• Duration

01.01.2026 - 31.12.2026

• Budget

CHF 20'000