Research Data Centers and Confidential Data

Research Data Centers offer one means of providing researchers with
access to confidential microdata from surveys and other administrative records.
Increasingly, government agencies are relying on research data centers
because of growing concerns about data security and confidentiality of
respondents.  Building a data center rather than releasing data publicly
allows a data supplier to maintain control over data uses and safeguard
the confidentiality of respondents while providing researchers access to
very detailed data.  Data agencies have found that the research data
center model is particularly useful for inherently sensitive data, such
as firm and establishment records, health records, and files with detailed
geographic identifiers.  In most cases, the data available through
research data centers is not suitable for public release.  In other
cases, agencies may employ a tiered data release strategy whereby a public use
file with limited detail is released and a more detailed file is
available at the data center.  As pressures to restrict the amount of detail
available in public use files grow, data centers are expected to
increasingly rely upon this strategy.

This session surveys the use of data centers in four countries:  Canada,
the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States.  Panelists will
provide an overview of the types of data available at RDCs and the
procedures for obtaining access.  In particular, panelists will highlight
aspects of the research process which are unique to data centers
including, the project selection process, security measures, legal
safeguards, access fees, special project requirements, and limitations on
research output.