EUROSTAT
Directorate B: Quality, methodology and information systems
Unit B-2: Methodology and research /
Second meeting of the Expert Group on SDC
8 December 2011
Luxembourg BECH B2/464
Short conclusions
1.Participants:
-(BE) Mr Youri Baeyens
-(CZ) Mr Ivan Stojka
-(DE) Ms Sarah Gießing
-(FR) Mr Julien Nicolas
-(IT) Ms Luisa Franconi
-(NL) Mr Anco Hundepool
-(AT) Mr Bernhard Meindl,
-(PT) Mr Pedro Campos
-(FI) Ms Janika Tarkoma
-Eurostat: Mr Jean-Marc Museux (chairman), Ms Aleksandra Bujnowska, Ms Mihaela Agafitei, (Unit B2 Methodology and research)
Mr Georges Pongas (Unit B3 Information systems for statistical production)
-ECB: Mr Mark Boxall
2.report on the activities
Eurostat presented astatus of various activities related with statistical confidentiality. The issue of passive confidentiality will be added to the list of current activities.
3.Confidentiality Charter for EU aggregates
Mihaela Agafitei presented a draft model of confidentiality charter. The charter lays down the general principles, rules and information necessary to check whether a given EU aggregate is safe or unsafe for publication. The charter should be the reference document for the treatment of statistical confidentiality at the EU level in the different statisticaldomains.
Main objectives of the charter:
- to maximise the completeness of published Community totals and EU aggregates
- to encourage MSs reporting their confidential data
- to ensure MSs that, by adopting ESS-CC, their data are safe
- to provide production units in Eurostat with a general template easy to be adapted to their specific needs
The Group supported the idea of a Confidentiality Charter and made the following suggestions:
- To recommend and prioritize in the charter the different protection rules
- Not to be too prescriptive on flags codes but to seek for coherence across domains
- To emphasize that the charter is targeting quantitative data tables as encountered most frequently in the business statistics domain
- To liaise with SDMX experts to sketch the feasibility of its implementation
- To further investigate the possibility of introduction of passive confidentiality or waivers
► Eurostat will revise the Charter and will send it for further comments to the members of the Expert Group.
4.Essnet results regarding tabular data protection: cell suppression, perturbative methods
Sarah Giessing presented the results of the WP 2 of the ESSnet on common tools and harmonized methodology for SDC in the ESS. The following topics were discussed:
(1) A generic data model including linked tables pattern and meta data template
(2) A link between methodological model and software development
(3) Research on tabular data protection (new perturbative methods for table generation)
(1) The objective of this part of the ESSnet was to develop the system of information/tables which can be used by the software tool to apply proper SDC methods.
(2) The need for metadata treatment in Argus was underlined, SDMX experts should be involved in specifying the structure of metadata needed for confidentiality treatment; SAS applications calling Argus were presented; they may facilitate the use of Argus by the NSI using SAS
(3) the addition of multiplicative noise to microdata could be an alternative to "classical" data protection methods based on suppressions (especially for very complex data structures); further research on that subject is conducted by Sarah within the Data without Boundaries project (see also paper of Sarah presented at UNECE/Eurostat work session on statistical confidentiality in Tarragona ).
► It was concluded that the Expert Group (including Eurostat) will use the inward FATS data to test the generic data model and template as proposed by Sarah. Sarah will distribute the forms to be filled in soon after the meeting.
5.Future developments of Argus software
In the framework of migration of Argus software towards an open source, the following ideas were presented by Anco Hundepool:
μ-Argus:
- is based on statistical procedures so R may be used for all computations
- Java may be used as a user interface
- is mostly used by the small SDC community
- shall be integrated with sdc_micro
- can be a stand-alone software
τ-Argus:
- is based more on optimisation procedures
- Java may be used as a user interface
- shall be integrated with sdc_table
- shall be integrated in the production line
- require state of the art IT architecture
Governance structure:
- essential, the governance shall not be improvised but designed carefully in advance
- in particular the way how to handle developments, to support and to maintain the Argus software have to be well planned before the migration towards an open source; the following options can be considered:
(1)Subcontracting
(2)Licensing
(3)Other?
Conclusions:
-General (including Eurostat) support for controlled (non-improvised) open source
-Governance structure to be designed carefully in parallel with urgent first steps to ensure sustainability of software (reengineering of the codes)
6.future work
As a follow up of the meeting several actions will be undertaken as mentioned above. The next meeting of the Expert Group will be focused on microdata. The anonymisation methods for new surveys and guidelines for anonymisation of social data will be discussed there.Eurostat will place all relevant information regarding anonymisation methods on WIKI.
WIKI should also be used to share important documents from other meetings and groups dealing with statistical confidentiality.
In 2012 Eurostat will launch a Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) on harmonisation of SDC. The selection of the partner countries will be done by means of the call limited to the members of the European Statistical System (e.g. NSI). The specific ESSnets will be addressed to the partners of the FTA only. Future ESSnet will be focused on problem solving and will mostly deal with harmonisation, standardisation and implementation actions.
Contact:
Aleksandra Bujnowska, Telephone: +352 4301-30037,
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