Pathogen genomic data are increasingly integral to infectious disease surveillance, outbreak investigation and public health response, with data sharing enabling comparison and analysis across institutions or borders. Yet the benefits of open data sharing are not always distributed equitably. Researchers and institutions that generate the data, particularly in low- and middle-income countries and outbreak-affected settings, may receive limited recognition, access to downstream analyses, or other benefits from their reuse. This is in part because information connecting data to their origin and contributors, and where possible to later use, may be lost as data are shared and reused. When those connections are not maintained it becomes harder to sustain recognition or where relevant, connect later benefits and responsibilities back to those contributions. To address this challenge, the GA4GH Pathogen Data Sharing Group has developed five institutional strategies for more equitable sharing. Traceability, the ability to track where data came from and, where possible, how they are later used, is one of these strategies and can help maintain that connection.

Preserving that connection, however, is not straightforward. It requires institutional and governance arrangements to clarify what information needs to remain traceable, for what purposes, and where responsibility for maintaining that information lies. Yet carrying out those governance expectations in practice also depends on how provenance and related information are associated with genomic records and maintained as data are shared and reused. By examining these governance arrangements in light of the technical and operational conditions under which traceability operates, we can understand how governance can support traceability in practice.

This Connect session, convened by the GA4GH-PHAGE Infectious Disease Community and its Pathogen Data Sharing Group, explores that relationship through accounts from people who contribute pathogen genomic data and who operate the repositories and platforms through which those data are shared. Through practical examples, participants will describe how sharing works in their own settings, including what information is retained, what requirements and responsibilities apply, and where challenges arise around attribution, provenance, access, and onward use. These accounts will then inform a discussion of where these governance questions around what information needs to remain traceable and for what purposes may need closer attention, and help shape the questions the group takes forward as it develops its work on pathogen genomic traceability.