This month Yea-Hung Chen and Ariel Deardorff from UCSF will present on efforts to safeguard disappearing government data. Since early 2025 several federal research datasets have been altered or deleted in response to executive orders from the White House. These actions have raised significant concerns about the accessibility and integrity of government data. For example, in February, several datasets from the US Census Bureau suddenly became unavailable, and others from the CDC were removed and then later restored. In this presentation, we will explore the latest developments in data censorship and the current efforts to rescue and preserve government datasets. You’ll learn about the organizations that have worked to preserve data, alternative sources of government data, and how you can get involved to protect valuable public information. 

About the Bay Area Open Science Group
The Bay Area Open Science Group is a growing community for Bay Area academics and researchers interested in incorporating open science into their research, teaching, and learning. Targeting students, faculty, and staff at UCSF, Berkeley, and Stanford, the goal of the community is to increase awareness of and engagement with all things open science, including open access articles, open research data, open source software, and open educational resources. Through this work the group hopes to connect researchers with tools they can use to make the products and process of science more equitable and reproducible.