Frequently Asked Questions

How long will my data remain private before they are included in the BOLD Public Data Portal? Is there any way I can make my data public sooner?

BOLD Systems serves as a workbench for users to organize, analyze, and publish data and its design and policies incorporate the fact that specimen identification can be a time consuming process. As such, there is no hard timeline for records to be made public.

Data records will not be released into the BOLD Public Data Portal unless project managers request to make them public via the project or dataset properties. Please visit the BOLD Handbook for instructions on how to do so.

Exceptions to these protocols occur in the iBOL project for sequences generated at the Canadian Center for DNA Barcoding (CCDB). Under this circumstance, data records are partially released to the BOLD Public Data Portal within 3 months of sequence upload, in compliance with the iBOL data release policy. Early release records have their taxonomy obscured (exposing only order) and have locality information obscured (exposing only GPS and country). Additionally, all data elements are exposed after 18 months of early release. Please visit the iBOL release policy for more information: iBOL Data Release Policy. If you would like to have your data released sooner, you may do so at anytime by making your project or dataset public and by submitting your data to GenBank.