Dynamically Consistent Noise Infusion and Partially Synthetic Data as Confidentiality Protection Measures for Related Time Series
The Census Bureau's Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI) provide detailed quarterly statistics on employment measures such as worker and job flows, tabulated by worker characteristics in various combinations. The data are released for several levels of NAICS industries and geography, the lowest aggregation of the latter being counties. Disclosure avoidance methods are required to protect the information about individuals and businesses that contribute to the underlying data. The QWI disclosure avoidance mechanism we describe here relies heavily on the use of noise infusion through a permanent multiplicative noise distortion factor, used for magnitudes, counts, differences and ratios. There is minimal suppression and no complementary suppressions. To our knowledge, the release in 2003 of the QWI was the first large-scale use of noise infusion in any official statistical product. We show that the released statistics are analytically valid along several critical dimensions { measures are unbiased and time series properties are preserved. We provide an analysis of the degree to which confidentiality is protected. Furthermore, we show how the judicious use of synthetic data, injected into the tabulation process, can completely eliminate suppressions, maintain analytical validity, and increase the protection of the underlying confidential data.
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| Length: | 40 pages |
| Date of creation: | Jul 2012 |
| Handle: | RePEc:cen:wpaper:12-13 |
| Contact details of provider: | Postal: 4600 Silver Hill Road, Washington, DC 20233 Phone: (301) 763-6460 Fax: (301) 763-5935 Web page: http://www.census.gov/ces Email: More information through EDIRC
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References listed on IDEAS
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"Integrated Longitudinal Employer-Employee Data for the United States,"
American Economic Review,
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- John M. Abowd & Bryce E. Stephens & Lars Vilhuber & Fredrik Andersson & Kevin L. McKinney & Marc Roemer & Simon Woodcock, 2009. "The LEHD Infrastructure Files and the Creation of the Quarterly Workforce Indicators," NBER Chapters,in: Producer Dynamics: New Evidence from Micro Data, pages 149-230 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- John M. Abowd & Bryce E. Stephens & Lars Vilhuber & Fredrik Andersson & Kevin L. McKinney & Marc Roemer & Simon Woodcock, 2002. "The LEHD Infrastructure Files and the Creation of the Quarterly Workforce Indicators," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2002-05, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
- John Abowd & Bryce Stephens & Lars Vilhuber, 2006. "The LEHD Infrastructure Files and the Creation of the Quarterly Workforce Indicators," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2006-01, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
- John M. Abowd & Julia I. Lane, 2004. "New Approaches to Confidentiality Protection Synthetic Data, Remote Access and Research Data Centers," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2004-03, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau. Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)