Archie has been designed to protect the privacy of the personal information it contains.
See https://community.cochrane.org/organizational-info/resources/policies/data-policy
Any individual with an interest in Cochrane’s work can create a Cochrane account. However, this does not grant access to Archie. Archie is reserved for people with particular roles, e.g. editorial staff and authors. These roles should be removed or made inactive if they are no longer relevant, to ensure access to Archie is restricted to active users.
Group Super Users and administrators are responsible for allocating Group Roles which grant access to Archie. Only persons actively involved with Cochrane should be given roles that grant Archie access.
Different roles within a group grant different levels of user permissions. Super Users have broader permissions than other users, including the ability to export data, edit contact details, and view hidden information on group members. Only a few core people in each group should be assigned user rights at this level. In a review group, it is normally the ME who decides who should have these rights. See Permissions.
Within an individual record, the contact address, email addresses, mobile phone numbers and Skype names can be marked as Hidden (see Editing a person and Personal contact details). Such information will be visible only to the Super User(s) of an individual's primary group for the person and to individuals themselves. Other users, including Super Users from other groups, will only be able to see that the information has been marked as Hidden (see example below).
A person's name, group role(s) and affiliation(s) cannot be hidden and will be visible to all users.
While a person can request their contact address is hidden, affiliations cannot be hidden. This is because if a person becomes the Contact Person of a published review, the affiliation will be published in the Cochrane Library.
In all records, the optional information on Country of origin and Sex will be visible only to the Super User(s) of an individual’s primary group and to individuals themselves. These data will be anonymised for inclusion in organisational reporting.
Any user of Archie may add a note to any person's record via the Notes tab of the person's Properties. The author of the note controls who will be able to read the note by making it one of four types: a public, group administrative, or private note. See About Notes. Any contact can request to see notes on their record, including private notes, at any time.
System Administrators have access to all information stored in the database. Groups will be kept informed about which data are extracted, who the data are shared with, and for what purpose.
All users have the right to request a report about the information stored about them in Archie.
Standard users should not export addresses or create mass mailings, and are only given access to the contact details of other members of the Collaboration to enable them to look up individuals. In support of that policy, standard users can only export 25 results.