Expanding Access to Research Data Reconciling Risks and Opportunities (2005) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
2 The Changed Landscape
2 The Changed Landscape
Pages 15-35
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 15... ...
INCREASING PUBLIC CONCERN Private Lives and Public Policies noted public concerns about privacy and confidentiality, but did not describe them in any detail. This report, more so than its predecessor, takes account of changing public attitudes about privacy and confidentiality issues as they bear on principles of data collection and data access.
|
From page 16... ...
16 EXPANDING ACCESS TO RESEARCH DATA summarized in Chapter 4 and elsewhere (see National Research Council, 2004b; Hillygus et al., 2006)
|
From page 17... ...
Complex policy-making requires multivariate causal thinking about policy alternatives, which, in turn, requires complex, multivariate, often longitudinal data. For example, how will changing the age of eligibility for Social Security affect retirement decisions across different occupations and regions of the country?
|
From page 18... ...
. These agencies include statistical agencies, such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
|
From page 19... ...
In the case of statistical agencies, they may avoid policy-oriented data analysis so as not to impair credibility, which is based in part on the public's perception of their objectivity (National Research Council, 2005)
|
From page 20... ...
By scanning, one terabyte of storage can 2The Web address for access to all statistical agencies is Fedstats.gov.
|
From page 21... ...
Some data characteristics that create vulnerability include: · detailed geographic information; · repeated data collection from the same subjects; · outliers, such as people with very high incomes; · many attribute variables; and · complete census data rather than a survey of a small sample of the population. Data with geographic detail, such as census block data, may easily be 3One such historical source is the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS)
|
From page 22... ...
. CHANGES IN THE LEGAL ENVIRONMENT For the reasons outlined above, statistical agencies face increased tension as they try to respond to public policy and research needs for data while protecting the confidentiality of the underlying information.
|
From page 23... ...
The obligation to protect research data extends beyond federal agency personnel to include those who contract with the agency to provide statistical research services, such as conducting survey interviews or preparing data products.
|
From page 24... ...
The validity of the OMB guidelines and the effect of the CIPSEA restrictions are the subject of some dispute and have yet to be tested through litigation. Federal statistical agencies also confront increased scrutiny about the quality of information that they disseminate to the public, even if the data have not been used as part of the regulatory process.
|
From page 25... ...
or by various alterations that limit the identifiability of the data and hence permit them to be made publicly available (restricted data)
|
From page 26... ...
. Although many types of restricted data continue to be available, statistical agencies (in response to the increased threats to confidentiality protection noted above)
|
From page 27... ...
Initially, relatively simple data masking techniques, such as top coding income amounts (that is, assigning all income amounts above a certain value to a single category) , were used to generate restricted data products.
|
From page 28... ...
For several decades, major statistical agencies, including BLS, the Science Resources Statistics Division of NSF, and the Census Bureau, have sponsored fellowship programs through the American Statistical Association and the NSF for researchers to work with confidential data at the agency's site.7 These programs have been invaluable to the agencies in 7The American Statistical Association also administers research fellowship programs for the NCHS and the BEA.
|
From page 29... ...
The Census Bureau states that the purpose of its RDCs is to increase the utility and quality of Census Bureau data products by providing confidential microdata to qualified researchers under conditions that do not pose unacceptable disclosure risks. The NCHS offers a similar rationale.
|
From page 30... ...
At the Census Bureau sites, for example, researchers have access not only to microdata sets on business establishments, but also to demographic microdata sets (including versions of the Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation) with more geographic and socioeconomic detail than is made publicly available and to linkages of population and economic census, survey, and administrative records data (such as the data sets being assembled by the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program)
|
From page 31... ...
He notes the common view among RDC directors and researchers that the use of restricted data sets, specifically the Longitudinal Research Database and other Census Bureau data, has declined. Recognizing these issues, the Census Bureau has recently indicated its intention to consider ways to streamline the RDC process and to explore the addition of data sets from other statistical agencies to its RDC network, which would increase their attractiveness to researchers.9 Monitored Remote Access Monitored remote access to confidential data is currently implemented in four federal statistical agencies: · the NCES, which permits access to a range of education files containing confidential data using the NCES Data Access System (nces.edu.gov/das)
|
From page 32... ...
They provide more detail to researchers than public use files, but less detail than is usually available in an RDC. The files reside in the [federal statistical agencies]
|
From page 33... ...
. Monitored remote access has the advantage that a researcher does not have to go to an RDC to make use of confidential data and, in the case of the NCES and Census Bureau systems, output is returned quickly.
|
From page 34... ...
Even as some methods are applied to decrease disclosure risk, others have been designed to improve access under carefully controlled conditions. In response to increased public concerns about privacy and confidentiality and developments in information technology and data availability in the past decade, the statistical and research communities responded quickly with new methods for restricted access modes and restricted data
|
From page 35... ...
Such improvement will require strong partnership between the research community and statistical and research agencies in the design of innovative research on disclosure avoidance techniques and data access modalities and in the implementation of the advances that result from such research.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.