Central facilities for neutron scattering and synchrotron X-ray sources in Europe are working together to develop and share infrastructure for the data collected there. Such co-operation should make it easier and more efficient for users to access and process their data, and provide more secure means of storage and retrieval. It should also increase the scientific value of the data by opening it up to a wider community for further analysis and fostering new collaborations between scientific groups. However, with these developments comes a need to define how raw data are stored and made accessible, and in particular, what metadata are included to allow diffraction data to be intelligible to new users. To this end, an ILL data policy was established in 2012, and a number of tools (e.g. [i] https://data.ill.eu [ii] https://logs.ill.eu) are being developed. These currently allow experimental data (identified by a DOI) to be consulted and downloaded remotely and ultimately will allow for (re)processing and validation of experimental data.