User-focused threat identification for anonymised microdata

Hans-Peter Hafner, Felix Ritchie () and Rainer Lenz
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Hans-Peter Hafner: Saarland State University of Applied Sciences
Rainer Lenz: Technical University of Dortmund

Working Papers from Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol

Abstract: When producing anonymised microdata for research, national statistics institutes (NSIs) identify a number of 'risk scenarios' of how intruders might seek to attack a confidential dataset. This paper argues that the strategy used to identify confidentiality protection measures can be seriously misguided, mainly since scenarios focus on data protection without sufficient reference to other aspects of data. This paper brings together a number of findings to see how the above problem can be addressed in a practical context. Using as an example the creation of a scientific use file, the paper demonstrates that an alternative perspective can have dramatically different outcomes.

Keywords: statistical disclosure control; data protection; microdata anonymisation; big data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C18 C81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-01-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uwe:wpaper:20151503

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