Ethics of a potential collaborator removing another researcher from a project? I work for an organization that has some research restrictions -- for instance, we do not allow non-employees to have direct data access for security purposes.

I recently invited an academic collaborator to work with me on a new (social science) project that may get launched. It would involve data collection from a non-profit. The plan was for the non-profit to send the data to my organization. My potential academic collaborator and I were in very early talks over the ideas and direction of the overall project when I mentioned the data restrictions. His response was that not having direct data access is unacceptable (although I offered to try to facilitate an on site visit) and as such, he is going to directly contact the non-profit, thereby eliminating me and my organization from the project.

The original contact was made by another employee at my organization, meaning that he would have not had access to the non-profit without me.

My gut reaction is that this behavior is unprofessional and unethical. My understanding was that many organizations restrict data access to give preference to their employees, so that this restriction is not unreasonable. My question is whether others agree regarding 1) those restrictions and 2) the ethics of this professor's behavior. Thanks.


  Added:
  A follow-up question, given the response below, is whether we have any obligation (ethical or otherwise) to keep the academic on the project. We built the relationship with the non-profit for months prior to contacting the academic, so I certainly would feel comfortable moving forward with the non-profit on another idea (and possibly this one, if the logic holds on both directions).
There is nothing unethical about this.  You approached a researcher with an idea for a future project, which you both agreed would be a good idea.  However, your employment situation makes it impossible to meet the potential collaborators entirely reasonable demands.  (I would probably not get involved in any research project in which I could not, in principle, have access to the underlying data.  I might never need to see it, but if there is some kind of problem, I would definitely want to be able to look at the raw data for myself and draw my own conclusions.)

Having suggested the research project but been unable to come to an agreement about how it should proceed, you are in a tricky situation.  The other researcher has no obligation not to pursue the project without you or your employer.  I would not consider it a particularly friendly thing to do, but there is no ethical problem.  Your original idea should be acknowledged in the final publications (or whatever) based on this research, but that is as far as your contribution may go.