Statistical Confidentiality and Access to Microdata
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UNITED NATIONS ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE STATISTICAL CONFIDENTIALITY AND ACCESS TO MICRODATA Proceedings of the Seminar Session of the 2003 Conference of European Statisticians UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE STATISTICAL CONFIDENTIALITY AND ACCESS TO MICRODATA Proceedings of the Seminar Session of the 2003 Conference of European Statisticians UNITED NATIONS NEW YORK AND GENEVA 2003 Note The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. FOREWORD At the 51st plenary session of the Conference of European Statisticians (CES) held in Geneva, 10-12 June 2003, one of the two seminars was devoted to the issue of statistical confidentiality and access to microdata. This seminar was organized and chaired by Statistics Sweden in cooperation with the CES Bureau. Since the seminar was regarded as very fruitful, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and Statistics Sweden decided to make a joint publication of the proceedings of the seminar. The Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, adopted by the Economic Commission for Europe in 1992, include a principle, according to which “Official statistics provide an indispensable element in the information system of a democratic society…”. Furthermore “…individual data collected by statistical agencies for statistical compilation, whether they refer to natural or legal persons, are to be strictly confidential and used exclusively for statistical purposes”. When discussing microdata, the main challenge for statistical offices is to ensure that the improved access to microdata will not undermine the confidentiality principle, both in reality and in the perception of the public and respondents to statistical surveys. The introduction of this publication includes a brief summary of the discussions that took place at the seminar. Large differences between countries can be seen both regarding legal aspects and access to microdata, which become obvious when studying the publication. The need for further collaboration and sharing information was emphasized at the seminar. The Conference agreed to create a Task Force to develop a set of guidelines for dissemination of microdata and confidentiality protection. Heinrich Brüngger Svante Öberg Chief, Statistical Division Director General UN Economic Commission for Europe Statistics Sweden iii iv Table of contents INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER I: OVERVIEW AND USE OF MICRODATA.......................................................5 Summary of discussants’ main points..........................................................................................7 by Len Cook Uses of microdata: Keynote speech............................................................................................11 by Julia Lane Statistical confidentiality and microdata ...................................................................................21 by Matti Niva, Bo Sundgren and Ingrid Lyberg CHAPTER II: DATA CONFIDENTIALITY...........................................................................29 Summary of discussants’ main points........................................................................................31 by Tadeusz Toczynski Data Confidentiality - a survey of transition economies .........................................................35 by the ECE secretariat Confidentiality of statistical data - the Russian Federation....................................................53 by Vladimir L. Sokolin Statistical data confidentiality - Georgia ..................................................................................59 by Teimuraz A. Beridze Protection of confidential data in practical work of state statistical bodies of Ukraine........63 by Olexander Osaulenko Statistical confidentiality - Poland.............................................................................................71 by Tadeusz Toczynski Statistical data confidentiality - Kyrgyzstan............................................................................77 by Zarylbek Kudabaev and Nataliya Gudkova v Statistical data confidentiality and microdata - Lithuania .....................................................83 by Sigitas Biciunas CHAPTER III: LEGAL ASPECTS OF MICRODATA..........................................................87 Summary of discussants’ main points........................................................................................89 by Katherine K. Wallman and Brian Harris-Kojetin Recent EU legislation for research access to confidential data – implementation and implications ............................................................................................97 by John King Legal aspects – legislation in the Nordic countries.................................................................107 by Birgitta Pettersson CHAPTER IV: ACCESS TO MICRODATA – ISSUES, ORGANIZATION AND APPROACHES ..........................................................................................................................115 Access to microdata – the situation in the Autralian Bureau of Statistics ...........................117 by Dennis Trewin Challenges for traditional approaches to confidentiality protection – the Danish experience ...................................................................................................................................131 by Lars Thygesen Research data centres of the official statistics .........................................................................141 by Tom Wende and Markus Zwick Access to microdata – the data stewardship model of the U.S. Census Bureau...................147 by Gerald Gates, Pat Doyle, Sam Hawala, Arnold Reznek and Rochelle Wilkie Martinez BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES OF THE AUTHORS ..................................................................157 vi STATISTICAL CONFIDENTIALITY AND ACCESS TO MICRODATA 1 INTRODUCTION Confidentiality is one of the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. It is a top priority issue on the policy agenda of statistical offices and an indispensable element to maintaining the trust of respondents and thus ensuring the quality of data. The Bureau of the Conference of European Statisticians (CES) recognised the need to discuss confidentiality problems in statistical practice at the highest level and chose confidentiality and access to microdata as the topic of a special seminar of the 2003 plenary session of the CES. The present publication provides all the papers, both invited and supporting, that were considered at the Seminar. It follows the programme of the Seminar, concentrating on the following four themes: (1) overview and use of microdata, (2) data confidentiality, (3) legal aspects of microdata, and (4) access to microdata. Each topic begins with the discussants’ comments, which provide a good introduction to the issues considered. Current problems in confidentiality protection are analysed and some steps for future international cooperation in this area are identified. Special attention is paid to confidentiality problems in Central and Eastern European and the CIS countries. Chapter I deals with confidentiality issues and access to microdata in general. The paper by Statistics Sweden (Matti Niva, Bo Sundgren and Ingrid Lyberg) provides a good overview of the main issues. Julia Lane, in her keynote speech, summarizes the benefits and risks associated with microdata access. Statistical offices experience increasing pressure from scientists and governments to provide access to detailed data. The wealth of available data would be invaluable for research, policy making and monitoring, local planning, etc. If statistical offices do not address these issues, researchers and governments may look for alternate data providers, which is a waste of public resources and will (probably) result in a lower quality of data. There are benefits also on the statistical offices’ side: bringing in the needs of the research can help to improve the surveys, academic use of data can increase the prestige of statistical work and attract more highly qualified staff. However, there are high costs and risks associated with microdata access. Setting up the necessary conditions and contracts, keeping the technical tools up-to-date, monitoring the conformance to confidentiality principles, etc. is a demanding exercise. These costs have to be fully born by the statistical offices while most of the benefits accrued arise from analysis undertaken outside the statistical agencies. Therefore, statistical offices often allow research access to microdata only on the condition that it provides a benefit to the statistical agency’s programs. Chapter II covers specific issues of confidentiality protection in Central and Eastern European and the CIS countries; these are considered in the papers by the UNECE secretariat, the Russian Federation (Vladimir L. Sokolin), Georgia (Teimuraz A. Beridze), Ukraine (Olexander 2 Introduction Osaulenko), Poland (Tadeusz Toczynski), Kyrgyzstan (Zarylbek Kudabaev and Nataliya Gudkova), and Lithuania (Sigitas Biciunas). The UNECE paper presents the results of a survey carried out in the transition economies in January 2003. The survey shows that the main concerns of transition economies with regard to data confidentiality are: methods of access to microdata, legal implementation of confidentiality protection, methodological