CES Task Force on Confidentiality and Microdata

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CES Task Force on Confidentiality and Microdata

• Tiina Luige
• UNECE Statistical Division
• Conference of European Statisticians
• UN Economic Commission for Europe

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Background

• Conference of European Statisticians (CES)
  Heads of the statistical offices of 55 ECE member
  countries non-European OECD countries
  int. org-s
• Plenary session every June 53rd in 2005
• http//www.unece.org/stats/
• In 2003 a seminar on Statistical Confidentiality
  and Microdata
• gt dealing with managerial issues of
  confidentiality and microdata access

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CES in 2003 agreed that

• confidentiality is becoming an international
  issue
• need to unify the approaches internationally and
  to agree on core principles for dissemination of
  microdata
• to address research access internationally
• to help countries that are in the process of
  setting up their legal background and procedures
• help in discussions with user community and other
  government agencies
• principles general enough to be applicable in
  countries with different level of development
• accompanied by guidelines and good practices
• endorsed by the CES

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Fundamental principles of official statistics

• Principle 6 data confidentiality
• Individual data collected by statistical
  agencies for statistical compilation, whether or
  not they refer to natural or legal persons, are
  to be strictly confidential and used exclusively
  for statistical purposes

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TF on Confidentiality and Microdata

• Members Australia (Chair), Canada, Denmark,
  Georgia, Italy, Poland, UNECE
• Website http//www.unece.org/stats/documents/tfcm
  .htm
• First draft presented at the CES 2004 plenary
  session
• Comments from countries
• 2nd version at the 2005 CES plenary session
  Managing confidentiality and microdata access
  guidelines and core principles
• 3rd version for the 2005 October meeting of the
  CES Bureau
• June 2006 planned final endorsement of the
  Guidelines

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Guidelines

• Perspectives of the statistical offices and the
  research community
• Core principles
• Methods of supporting the research community
  (anonymised microdata files, remote access
  facilities, data laboratories)
• Management issues associated with the release of
  microdata (decision making, metadata, breaches by
  researchers)
• Special issues (international access, data
  linking)
• Case studies (21)

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Principles

• Principle 1 It is appropriate for microdata
  collected for official statistical purposes to be
  used for secondary data analysis to support
  research as long as there are prescribed
  conditions that protect confidentiality.
• Principle 2 Microdata should only be made
  available for statistical purposes.
• Principle 3 Provision of microdata should be
  consistent with legal and other necessary
  arrangements which ensure that confidentiality of
  the released microdata is protected.
• Principle 4 The processes for researcher access
  to microdata as well as the uses and users of
  microdata should be transparent, and publicly
  available.

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Perspective of the research community

• From research side has been some criticism that
  the Guidelines are too restrictive, especially
  from the census microdata users
• Guidelines apply to
• both economic and social microdata
• very different countries big/small, developed
  market economies/developing and transition
  countries
• Final responsibility for confidentiality lies
  with statistical offices

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Issues where different opinions are expressed

• Statistical purposes
• microdata could be used for research purposes
  using statistical models, analysis and data based
  on microdata
• Equality of access
• transparent procedures
• Informed consent
• active and passive consent
• Public Use Files
• stocktaking of different approaches needed

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Different opinions expressed (cont.)

• International access more developed in the
  updated version
• enforcing punishment across borders
• access by international organizations
• Public benefit
• better criterion furthering the objectives of
  statistical offices
• Other
• conflict with data protection laws
• sensitive variables
• different kinds of research
• gt Flexibility in implementation should be allowed

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UNECE Survey on international access to microdata
(fall 2005)

• Sent out to UNECE and OECD member countries - 61
  countries, 43 responded ( response rate about
  70)
• Majority of countries release microdata to
  international organisations (only 3 do not)
• Can release 55 as PUF, 82 licensed microdata
  files, few RAF (12)
• Do release 40 as PUF, 67 licensed files
• 50 to an int. organization as a whole, 50 to an
  individual
• business and household data - 65 the same
  arrangements, 32 different
• 85 can release to researchers collaborating with
  int. org. 77 to researchers from other countries

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Further steps

• Target date for final version for endorsement by
  the CES June 2006
• Will become the UNECE Principles of
  confidentiality and access to microdata, an
  extension of fundamental principles of official
  statistics in the area of confidentiality

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For more information

• Website http//www.unece.org/stats/documents/tfcm
  .htm
• Chairman Dennis Trewin, Australian Bureau of
  Statistics (dennis.trewin_at_abs.gov.au)
• UNECE Secretariat Tiina Luige (tiina.luige_at_unece.
  org)