Private and Personal Information in Your Thesis
Canadian privacy legislation requires that any personal Information be severed from theses that are forwarded to the National Library of Canada thesis deposit program. The grad student is responsible for obscuring or removing Personal Information before their thesis is submitted.
Before you upload your final thesis to our Electronic Thesis Deposit system, you will want to remove this information. For small pieces of information (email, phone numbers etc.), you must delete the information before uploading. Large sections should be removed and replaced with documentation explaining what has been removed.
Personal Information is factual or subjective information which allows the identification of a particular individual in a personal rather than professional way.
More specifically, personal information in theses is often apparent as:
- Original signatures
- Home addresses
- Home phone numbers
- Personal email addresses
Specific parts of theses likely to contain personal information are:
- Usually in the appendices
- Copies of signed forms, such as research ethics approval
- Copies of signed letters such as a letter accompanying a survey or letter of informed consent to participate in research
- Copies of survey instrument with contact details
- Personal Information does not include the name and professional contact information of thesis supervisors and/or ethics committee members.