Dissemination - Legal issues

Statistical organizations at the national, supra-national and international levels are increasingly vested with the obligation to disseminate microdata. Nevertheless, there are legal constraints on what these institutions can do and on how they can do it.

Legal principles defined by the international community and reflected in national legislations state that individual data collected by official statistical agencies must be confidential and properly protected. As a result, data producers willing to share their microdata must develop anonymization procedures and assess disclosure risk. Another defining principle is to grant access to microdata for research or statistical purposes only. To guarantee that microdata will be used appropriately, clear and transparent procedures as well as technical arrangements must then be put in place.

The references below provide useful information on how statistical agencies can reconcile the need to protect confidentiality with microdata dissemination.

The Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities (CCSA) has published the "Principles Governing International Statistical Activities." Another set of guidelines of particular interest are the principles and guidelines of good practices prepared at the request of the Conference of European Statisticians by a Task force on Confidentiality and Microdata on Managing Statistical Confidentiality and Microdata Access. Last, UNECE published the Proceedings of the Seminar Session of the 2003 Conference of European Statisticians held in Geneva, 10-12 June 2003.