Procedures for Restricted Data Access

Brief description of restricted access procedures:

 Statistical agencies have two main options to protect confidentiality. One is to use statistical methods to limit disclosure. These have been called "resticted data procedures." Agencies release such products (ex., tables and microdata) without restictions on their use.

 For many legitimate research analyses, restricted data products are not adequate and often severely limit the amount of detail that is available. To enable qualified users to access the more detailed data, statistical organization use administrative procedures that protect the confidentiality of the data. In this second option, called "restricted access," conditions are imposed on who can access the data, for what purpose, at what location, which variables can be accessed, etcted

Selected References:

  • Duncan, G.T., Jabine, T.B., & de Wolf, V.A. Private lives and public policies: Confidentiality and accessibility of government statistics . Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1993. Summary.
  • Jabine, T.B. . Procedures for restricted access, Journal of Official Statistics , 1993, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 537-589.

Abstract: This paper is an excellent summary of restricted access procedures that U.S. statistical agencies use to make data available to other statistical agencies and to other organizations and individuals. Different types of procedures are illustrated by several examples. The author distinguishes between two different types of use: end-use and intermediate. The paper has six sections

  1. Introduction
  2. Deciding what can be released without restrictions and what can only be released with restrictions or not at all.
  3. Conceptual framework for the description and analysis of the attributes of data sets that do not qualify for unrestricted access and of the conditions that are imposed on their release.
  4. Nineteen examples of restricted access.
  5. Six examples of failures to gain desired access and their consequences.
  6. Recent history and current status of access to U.S. federal data for statistical purposes and suggested criteria for making choices among alternative access policies and procedures.