National Academies Press: OpenBook

Protecting Individual Privacy in Evaluation Research (1975)

Chapter: SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

« Previous: Front Matter
Suggested Citation:"SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS." National Research Council. 1975. Protecting Individual Privacy in Evaluation Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18828.
×
Page 1
Suggested Citation:"SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS." National Research Council. 1975. Protecting Individual Privacy in Evaluation Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18828.
×
Page 2

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS The Committee on Federal Agency Evaluation Research is releasing this report in hopes that it will arouse informed debate on an important public issue: how to protect the privacy of individuals who provide information about themselves to be used in the evaluation of federal government programs. The issue is difficult because it involves reconciling two important objectives: government accountability and individual privacy. Holding the government accountable for its use of the taxpayers' money (and making inform- ed decisions about future use of such money) necessitates evaluating the effectiveness of government programs in meeting the needs of the people they are supposed to serve. Such evaluation may require the collection of sensitive information from individuals as to how their health, employment, income, or other aspects of their lives have been altered by the government's efforts. The collection of such information entails risks to the individual's privacy— risks that the information collected for evaluation will be used for some other purpose to the detriment of the person who provided it. The Committee believes that both objectives are important and that neither should be sacrificed to the other. Ways can and must be found to evaluate government programs without endangering the privacy of people who cooperate in such evaluation by providing information about themselves. To this end the Committee recommends: (1) that all federal agencies engaging in evaluation research adopt rigorous procedures to ensure that data collected about individuals in the course of such research are kept strictly confidential and are not used for purposes other than such research or released in any way that permits identification of individuals; 1Throughout the body of this Report, the words "data" and "information" are used interchangeably and refer to facts or opinions that people give about themselves through written or oral responses to researchers. This meaning and usage also applies to Appendix A. In Appendix B (and in the Report's refer- ence to that Appendix), the words "data" and "information" are also used inter- changeably, but more broadly: they include not only the responses from re- search subjects but also researchers' work products, i.e., all materials re- sulting from all aspects of the research process.

(2) that consideration be given to enactment of a federal statute that would protect from subpoena information collected from individuals in the course of federal evaluation research and thus prevent such information from being used in law enforce- ment or other legal proceedings. These recommendations and the reasoning behind them are discussed below.

Next: THE NEED FOR PROTECTING INDIVIDUAL PRIVACY IN EVALUATION RESEARCH »
Protecting Individual Privacy in Evaluation Research Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF
  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!