New developments and a way forward
Luxembourg, 3 and 4 December 2008
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This workshop was the second workshop on microdata access organised by Eurostat. The first Workshop on Managing Microdata Access was held in Luxembourg in 2006 and aimed amongst others at discussing the UNECE Principles and guidelines of good practice in managing statistical confidentiality and microdata access.
The second workshop was organised in close collaboration with the Office for National Statistics (UK) and the Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA). The participants represented mainly statistical offices, data archives and research organisations.
The workshop aimed at discussing possible future developments in microdata access and their implications for the National Statistical Offices in the European Statistical System.
The objectives of the workshop were the following:
- To discuss the recent changes in the regulatory frameworks for confidentiality
- To share experiences on the way the researchers are given access to microdata and to reflect on the foreign researchers’ access to microdata
- To enumerate the remaining barriers in access to microdata
- To examine the alternative ways of accessing microdata and to investigate the possible role of data archives as a support to NSIs in the release of microdata.
The  agenda of the workshop was composed of 3 Themes, 8 Sessions and 18 presentations.
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Overview of the situation in microdata access in the ESS, regulatory frameworks for confidentiality
Chair: Mr Pedro Díaz Muñoz, Eurostat/B
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Speakers: Mr Jean-Marc Museux, Eurostat
Mr Kevin Schürer, CESSDA/UKDAThe speakers gave an overview of the situation regarding microdata access. Mr Jean-Marc Museux presented situation regarding access to EU microdata available in Eurostat. Mr Kevin Schürer introduced CESSDA (Council of European Social Science Data Archives) and outlined plans for its future development.
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Risk monitoring and remaining barriers in access to microdata
Chair: Mr Paul Jackson, ONS
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3.1. What is an Approved Researcher? NSIs’ perspective
Ireland
The Netherlands
Portugal (a) Portugal (b)
Slovenia
United Kingdom
3.2. Foreign researchers' access to microdata
Speaker: Mr Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur, Scientific Council of the National Social Science Data Committee
3.3. CESSDA and European accreditation
Speaker: Mrs Roxane Silberman, CESSDA/RQ
This session was devoted to the issue of accreditation of researchers. The different ways of accreditation of researchers and assessing the research projects were presented
with the special emphasize on the problem of foreign researchers' access to microdata.
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4.1. The decision making framework for initiatives in research data access to ONS microdata.
Speaker: Mr Paul Jackson, ONS
4.2. The National Data Strategy and the new Secure Data Service
Speaker: Miss Siân Bourne, UK Economic and Social Research
4.3. Analysing education, labour markets and poverty with European data: Challenges and Opportunities
Speaker: Mr Christopher Whelan and Mr Walter Mueller, Equalsoc
4.4. What, today, are the barriers in access to microdata in NSIs
Hungarian
The Netherlands
Portugal (a) Portugal (b)
Slovenia
This session aimed at identifying the remaining barriers in access to microdata from the NSIs' and researchers' point of view. The Economic and Social Research Council in the UK was presented as an example of the fruitful collaboration between academic, business and public sectors resulting in efficient data access management.
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Alternatives to anonymised microdata release
Chair: Mr Bjørn Henrichsen, CESSDA/NSD
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Principles and guidelines on confidentiality aspects of statistical data integration (UNECE Task Force)
Speaker: Mrs Tiina Luige(UNECE) and Mr Eric Schulte Nordholt, CBS (NL)
This session covered the confidentiality problems caused by integration of data from different sources, particularly administrative data. The outcomes of work of the UNECE Task Force on confidentiality and privacy aspects of data integration have been discussed. The results of the ESSnet project on integration of surveys and administrative data were presented as well.
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6.1. Data archives and access to government data for researchers: State of the art and future developments in Europe in the ERI perspective
Speaker: Mrs Roxane Silberman and Mrs Paola Tubaro, CESSDA/RQ
6.2. Access to confidential data through a data archive: the Norwegian experience
Speaker: Mrs Vigdis Kvalheim, CESSDA/NSD
The session focused on the way the data archives can be brought closer to the statistical institutes and on the trust building between these two institutions. An example of the successful cooperation between Statistics Norway and Norwegian Data Archives has been presented.
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7.1. Remote access solution in Sweden
Speaker: Mr Claus-Göran Hjelm
7.2. Remote access solution
Speaker: Mr Thierry Kruten, Luxembourg Income Study
7.3. The new Secure Data Service
Speaker: Mrs Melanie Wright, UK Data Archive
7.4. Network of national safe centres
Speaker: Mr Maurice Brandt, Destatis
Session 7 was dedicated to other means of microdata access i.e. remote access, remote execution and safe centre access. The Swedish remote access solution (MONA) and the new Secure Data Service in the UK were discussed. The presentations on remote execution solution to LIS (Luxembourg Income Study) data and the access through the network of safe centres located in the MS outlined other alternatives to microdata release.
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The workshop was a great opportunity to discuss the microdata access issues with different partners involved in the subject. Several aspects have been stressed. It was underlined that the new legal framework gives new opportunities in the field of microdata access and confidentiality. Commission is legally empowered now to ensure protection and harmonisation of statistical disclosure control methods in the ESS and thus can initiate and carry out actions in this field. Eurostat will therefore play even more important role in this domain. The delegates stressed the importance of access to microdata for research purposes. Researchers need more and more detailed statistics for carrying out various complex studies. It was underlined that in order to better answer to these needs it is necessary to further encourage and possibly institutionalize the collaboration between data producers and data users. An institutionalized forum of collaboration would help bringing together different parties and could foster the trust building between statistical offices, researchers and other data brokers. CESSDA may become an important actor in this structure. CESSDA and more generally data archives may also play and important role in providing access to microdata for research purposes. They may act as intermediaries handling various administrative tasks such as accreditation procedures and management of contracts. They may also provide the know how on specific topics related to microdata e.g. develop methods and tools on statistical disclosure control. Data archives can also contribute to the improvement of data documentation and metadata information. Collaboration with data archives could therefore reduce the burden and costs of these activities relying so far on statistical offices and consequently increase the return on the investment for the provision of microdata to researchers. Another important dimension of collaboration that will have to be further encouraged concern the exchange of practices and methodologies within NSIs. It is essential to share knowledge and tools and develop some common solutions that may be applied in different countries (e.g. for remote access). It is even more important in the situation when countries' practices differ substantially and there are diverse approaches to microdata access and confidentiality issues in general. It was concluded that the step by step approach should be promoted for the development of facilities for providing access to microdata by researchers. The collaboration at European
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