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Data confidentiality, protection of privacy in relation to data availability The aim of this section is to explain some of the risks associated with statistical disclosure; to define disclosure and to examine the potential effects of it. The objectives are therefore to:
1. Review the risks involved in releasing statistics
2. Examine how disclosure can occur
3. Look at how the level of risk can be reduced in relation to data availability
This is not purely a problem of statistical methodology. There are social and psychological factors which also need to be considered. In some cases, decisions by users, respondents and official statisticians can be seen to be driven more by these perception-type consideration than by a purely statistical evalution of risk.
The application of the confidentiality protection rules has had a major impact on publication capacity at the EC level. Previously, Member States had not been able to forward to Eurostat data which were under confidentiality restriction by national law. Consequently, it was not possible to possess in Eurostat tables of individual records, even anonymised or to produce an EC total for many aggregated statistics, where cell with too few units were present in one or more member states. This was particularly true when business data had to be transmitted, aggregated by NACE sectors. Any sector which was confidential in any Member State was treated in various ways at national level, altering the real figures. As the sectors which are confidential vary from one Member State to another, the overall impact has been severe.
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