GTEx is designated by NIH as a community resource and as such aims to share as much of the data (some of which will be unique and identifiable) as rapidly as possible, following NIH guidelines. It is recognized that quantifying the risk of identifying a donor based on genetic and other information lies on a continuum and is a complex issue dependent on many factors, such as other sources of data and evolving analytical methods16,17. Sharing of any information unique to an individual carries a small but difficult to define risk of identifiability, but this must be balanced with the benefits of data sharing to advance science.
