Training requirements to access SecureLab

The course we recognise as valid for SecureLab access – and which we deliver ourselves – is the Safe Researcher training (SRT) course which covers:

• Data security and personal responsibility, including legal background, security model, breaches and penalties.
• Statistical Disclosure Control – how to make statistical outputs safe and which principles are used.
• Using the SecureLab – how to use the interface and how to prepare and request data imports and suitable statistical outputs.

If you have attended SRT since 1st January 2019, then we will accept this for SecureLab access – if you trained with another SRT provider, then we will verify your attendance and successful pass with that provider, then ask you to complete our service-specific training, which is a short online MoodleX course that covers the specifics of working within the SecureLab environment. We will invite you to do this whilst we process your application.

If you have not attended SRT before and will be applying to access controlled data within SecureLab, please book on one of our SRT courses. We run these online approximately every three weeks. Future training dates, and information on how to book, are available on our upcoming Events pages.

The SRT course we deliver is valid for Accredited Researcher (AR) applications made via ONS, so if you’re applying for AR status and are attending training with us, then you can confirm your training date to ONS and they will verify your attendance and successful pass with us before issuing you with AR status. AR status is valid for a period of five years.

Yes. You must complete the most up-to-date and relevant SRT course to protect data privacy. SRT is the only course we run that is valid for applying for Accredited Researcher status.

Any SecureLab applicants who attended SURE researcher training prior to 1st January 2019 must attend an SRT course before we will allow access to SecureLab. However, the SRT course content is different to SURE.

If you are a current SecureLab researcher, or if you have previously used SecureLab, but have not logged in for more than two and a half years (30 months), then you must complete a short online MoodleX refresher course before you get access to SecureLab again.

We are also working closely with ONS colleagues and others in the SRT Expert Group to establish refresher options that can be used to keep a researcher’s AR status active – at present, this is likely to be a refresher halfway through the accreditation period and another at the end, before the AR status can be renewed. We will update here once arrangements have been agreed: until then, we will advise researchers on an individually-assessed basis on their training requirements.