Can an advisor use student's data for journal publishing without prior consent? A master's student did research under an advisor.  As part of the research, the student had collected and processed a lot of data and finally published the thesis as well. After a few years,  the advisor took a small portion of said data from the master's thesis and published a paper. The student is not a co-author nor was prior consent sought to use that data. However, the advisor added the student's name in the acknowledgment section. Is there anything wrong on the advisor's side? After all, the advisor had also actively guided the research and collection of data and may feel they have a right to use that data without the consent of the student.
The student played no role in publishing the paper except for the fact that a part of the student's published master's thesis data was used for this journal publication. The student was hence not added as a co-author but was acknowledged.
A paper should not be published without the consent of all the authors.
Collecting and processing data may or may not make someone an author; it depends on the details and the discipline.  We cannot evaluate this for you.
If you live in a jurisdiction where data is not protected by copyright law, then technically anybody who gets a copy of your data can publish that data wherever they please.
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/11359/can-you-copyright-data