IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v39y2007i5p1101-1118.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Case Study of the Impact of Statistical Disclosure Control on Data Quality in the Individual UK Samples of Anonymised Records

Author

Listed:
  • Kingsley Purdam
  • Mark Elliot

Abstract

Microdata released for public use, such as the Samples of Anonymised Records, Labour Force Survey data, and longitudinal data, such as the Millennium Cohort Study, are subject to statistical disclosure procedures. These measures include data swapping, recoding, postrandomisation, and suppression. Considerable research has been conducted into the extent to which such measures protect respondent anonymity. However, the impact the measures have on the utility of the data is a neglected area of research. In this case study we examine the impact of standard statistical disclosure control measures on the utility of a sample census microdata set. We consulted data users about the impact of the variable recoding on the usefulness of the data and repeated published analyses on a file that had been subjected to perturbative disclosure control measures. It was found that disclosure control measures had a significant impact on the usability of the data (analytical completeness) and on the accuracy of the data in relation to the findings reached when the data were used in analyses (analytical validity). The findings should be of interest to those involved in statistical disclosure control and to data users themselves. Although further research is required in this area, we conclude that data quality assessment should be a central part of disclosure control practice and that universal standards for the relationship between disclosure control and data utility should be developed.

Suggested Citation

  • Kingsley Purdam & Mark Elliot, 2007. "A Case Study of the Impact of Statistical Disclosure Control on Data Quality in the Individual UK Samples of Anonymised Records," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(5), pages 1101-1118, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:39:y:2007:i:5:p:1101-1118
    DOI: 10.1068/a38335
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a38335
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a38335?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon Duncan & Rosalind Edwards, 1997. "Lone Mothers and Paid Work - Rational Economic Man or Gendered Moral Rationalities?," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 29-61.
    2. Borooah, Vani K., 1999. "Is there a penalty to being a Catholic in Northern Ireland: an econometric analysis of the relationship between religious belief and occupational success1," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 163-192, June.
    3. Martyn Senior, 1998. "Area Variations in Self-perceived Limiting Long Term Illness in Britain, 1991: Is the Welsh Experience Exceptional?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 265-280.
    4. Angela Dale & Mark Elliot, 2001. "Proposals for 2001 samples of anonymized records: An assessment of disclosure risk," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 164(3), pages 427-447.
    5. S. J. Drinkwater & N. C. O'Leary, 1997. "Unemployment in Wales: Does Language Matter?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 583-591.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nowok, Beata & Raab, Gillian M. & Dibben, Chris, 2016. "synthpop: Bespoke Creation of Synthetic Data in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 74(i11).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Svenja G rtner, 2013. "German Stagnation vs. Swedish Progression: Gender Wage Gaps in Comparison, 1960-2006," LIS Working papers 586, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. Leen Marynissen & Eleonora Mussino & Jonas Wood & Ann-Zofie Duvander, 2019. "Fathers’ Parental Leave Uptake in Belgium and Sweden: Self-Evident or Subject to Employment Characteristics?," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-21, November.
    3. Jan Saarela & Fjalar Finnäs, 2002. "Language-group Differences in Very Early Retirement in Finland," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 7(3), pages 49-66.
    4. Borooah, Vani, 2000. "Targeting Social Need: Why are Deprivation Levels in Northern Ireland Higher for Catholics than for Protestants?," MPRA Paper 19415, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Sílvio Rendon, 2007. "The Catalan premium: language and employment in Catalonia," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(3), pages 669-686, July.
    6. Saarela, Jan & Finnas, Fjalar, 2003. "Unemployment and native language: the Finnish case," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 59-80, March.
    7. Saarela, Jan & Finnäs, Fjalar, 2002. "Language-Group Differences in Very Early Retirement in Finland," 10th International Conference on Panel Data, Berlin, July 5-6, 2002 A2-3, International Conferences on Panel Data.
    8. Melanie K. Jones, 2004. "Rural Labour Markets: The Welsh Example," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 19(3), pages 226-248, August.
    9. Thomas Plümper & Denise Laroze & Eric Neumayer, 2018. "Regional inequalities in premature mortality in Great Britain," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-16, February.
    10. Julia Bachtrögler & Julia Bock-Schappelwein & Paul Eckerstorfer & Peter Huber & Christine Mayrhuber & Mark Sommer & Gerhard Streicher, 2019. "Wachstumsfaktor Gleichstellung. Der ökonomische Nutzen von Gender Budgeting in Wien," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 65741, Juni.
    11. Wilding, Sam & Martin, David & Moon, Graham, 2016. "The impact of limiting long term illness on internal migration in England and Wales: New evidence from census microdata," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 107-115.
    12. Anzelika Zaiceva & Klaus Zimmermann, 2014. "Children, Kitchen, Church: does ethnicity matter?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 83-103, March.
    13. S. Mcguinness, 2003. "Graduate overeducation as a sheepskin effect: evidence from Northern Ireland," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(5), pages 597-608.
    14. Esther Geisler & Michaela R. Kreyenfeld, 2009. "Against all odds: fathers’ use of parental leave in Germany," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2009-010, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    15. Andrew Henley & Rhian Eleri Jones, 2005. "Earnings And Linguistic Proficiency In A Bilingual Economy," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 73(3), pages 300-320, June.
    16. Skinner, Chris J., 2007. "The probability of identification: applying ideas from forensic statistics to disclosure risk assessment," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 39105, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Esther Geisler & Michaela R. Kreyenfeld, 2012. "How policy matters: Germany’s parental leave benefit reform and fathers’ behavior 1999-2009," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2012-021, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    18. Struffolino, Emanuela & Mortelmans, Dimitri, 2018. "Lone Mothers in Belgium: Labor Force Attachment and Risk Factors," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 257-282.
    19. Rowland, Neil & McVicar, Duncan & Shuttleworth, Ian, 2018. "The Evolution of Catholic-Protestant Labour Market Inequality in Northern Ireland, 1983-2014," IZA Discussion Papers 11633, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Therese Jefferson & John King, 2001. ""Never Intended to be a Theory Of Everything": Domestic Labor in Neoclassical and Marxian Economics," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(3), pages 71-101.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:39:y:2007:i:5:p:1101-1118. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.