Giving research access to official microdata through the facilities of a National Statistical Institute: INE in Portugal

Jose A. PINTO MARTINS - DISSEMINATION UNITAna PINTO - LEGAL UNIT

16 & 17 october 2014 Athens, Greece

Second Regional Workshop - Microdata Access in European CountriesCooperation between National Statistical Institutes and Data Archives

Accreditation

Protocol

STATE LAW 22/2008, 13TH

MAY

State Law nº 22/2008, 13 May (principles, rules and structure of National Statistical System - NSS)

Art. 6 - Statistical confidentiality

2 — All individual statistical data collected by statistical authorities are confidential

General context

Legal framework (1/3)

Art. 6 - Statistical confidentiality

7 — … shall only be supplied for SCIENTIFIC PURPOSES, if ANONYMISED, upon an AGREEMENT signed between the statistical authority supplying the data and the entity requesting them...

8 — Requests …a specific scientific project, by researchers in universities or other legally recognized higher education institutions and scientific investigation organizations, …recognized as pursuing scientific purposes…

Legal framework (2/3)

Scientific purposes

PURPOSE - Scientific purposes and within the scope of a specific scientific project by researchers from:

• Universities and other higher education institutions• Other scientific investigation organizations, officially recognized as

having purposes of scientific research

CHARACTERISTICS OF DATA RELEASED – Anonymised

FORMALIZATION - An agreement signed between the Statistics Portugal and researcher(s), defining the technical and organizational measures deemed necessary to ensure the protection of confidential data and avoid any risk of illicit dissemination or use for other purposes.

State Law 22/2008 – establishes the Legal conditions for access by researchers to individual statistical data:

Legal framework (3/3)

FROM LEGAL CONDITIONS TO PRACTICAL ASPECTS - COOPERATION (1)

The applying process is based on three pillars:

ACCREDITATION

External to Statistics Portugal

(based on Protocolwith DGEEC and FCT,

both entities of the Ministry of Education

and Science, responsible for

conducting and funding research in PT)

REQUEST

Assessment by Statistics Portugal

making data available (anonymised or in

Secure environment)

AGREEMENT

Signed between Statistics Portugal and the researcher

establishing conditions

of use and sanctions

SUBJECT – ESTABLISHES THE COOPERATION FORMS BETWEEN THREE PARTNERSregarding conditions of access to statistical individual anonymised data in respect to art. 6º, n. 7 and 8 of NSS State Law 22/2008, 13th May.

SCOPE – Researchers from universities or other higher education institutions legally recognized and organizations, institutions or departments of scientific research recognized as such by the MES.

THE PROTOCOL (1)

(responsible for ACCREDITATION)

DGEECFCT Statistics

Portugal

(Provides access to databases/microdata)

Accreditation Request = Form + statement of commitment ( 1/researcher)

The Accreditation Request should be fully filled, signed and stamped, presented to DGEEC. Submission by webform will be available soon.

From the PROTOCOL (established cooperation) – to ACCREDITATION (cooperation in action)

Accreditation Request

Accreditation granted

Availability and support

Accreditation flow →

Each researcher involved in the request must also sign a statement of commitment (binding each researcher to statistical

secrecy)

Accreditation form

ACCREDITATION validity

Valid during the length declared for the research project

Valid only for data identified as being directly related to the accreditation request that gave rise to the credential.

The request for accreditation is associated with the obligatory signing of the Code of Conduct for the use of statistical data by the applicant and the research institution under the law (duty of confidentiality, of not replicate data, the conditions of security of the data, the obligation of destruction the data after usage and liability questions)

Accreditation – Who is a researcher? (1/4)

Accreditation – Who is a researcher? (2/4)

Accreditation – Who is a researcher? (3/4)

Accreditation – Who is a researcher? (4/4)

1 – Statistical databases (anonymised for researchers use)

2 – Specific results / taylor-made sets of anonymised data

3 - Safe centre (exceptionally)(directly on the individual databases without direct identification of statistical units) all outputs are checked before release; final information does not contain any direct or indirect

identification of the units referred to

4 – Remote access (not yet implemented)

(Available) ACCESS MODES

Cooperation in action?

Accreditation Request

Accreditation granted

Availability and support

Accreditation flow →

Our “statistics” (1/4)

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

(*)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

26

3027

33

41

32

2528

3936

48

41

47

54

34

Requests (No.), 2000-2014(*)

(*) - Jan - Sep 2014

Researchers and Requests

3rd Quarter 2014

2nd Quarter 2014

1st Quarter 2014

4th Quarter 2013

3rd Quarter 2013

4

10

20

11

12Requests (No.)

Requests (No.)

(*) - Jan-Mar

3rd Quarter 2014

2nd Quarter 2014

1st Quarter 2014

4th Quarter 2013

3rd Quarter 2013

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

6

23

42

26

19

4

10

20

11

12

Requests (No.)

Researchers (No.)

(*) - Jan-Mar

Average (Researchers/Request ) ~ 2

Our “statistics” (2/4)

3rd Quarter 2013 4th Quarter 2013 1st Quarter 2014 2nd Quarter 2014 3rd Quarter 2014

Research project 7 7 12 9 2

Phd research 1 0 6 1 0

Master 4 4 2 0 2

1

3

5

7

9

11

13

Requests by type of research activity

Our “statistics” (3/4)

Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q30.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

12.0

14.0

16.0

Average Time of INE’s answers

Nº

day

s

2012 2013 2014

Our “statistics” (4/4)

• Access to confidential data for scientific purposes is a priority for INE and for the use of Official statistics because many questions – economic, social, environmental and political sciences – can be answered adequately on the basis of relevant and detailed data allowing in-depth analyses;

• Wider access to confidential data for scientific work without compromising the high level of protection is beneficial to statistics;

• The experience and needs from researchers are relevant for improving accessibility of confidential data;

• Our commitment is providing good information. Researchers responsibility is the use of data in full respect for the fundamental Principle of Statistical Confidentiality.

Conclusions

And…

From our GOOD experience, COOPERATION for this specific purpose is an advantage; it allows, namely, split and share responsibilities' among parties with specific knowledge, and definitely rendering the system more efficient.

Conclusions

Cooperation in action? YES

Thank you for your attention!

Questions?

Second Regional Workshop - Microdata Access in European CountriesCooperation between National Statistical Institutes and Data Archives