Summary

The goal of this event is to show trainers the tools they need to teach the fundamentals of data anonymisation and disclosure control in training sessions while also giving them hands-on experience with current open source technologies (sdcMicro).

Description

Over the past few years, there has been a noticeable growth in both the need for and the volume of data from surveys, registers, or other sources that hold information about individuals and/or institutions. At the same time, rules and privacy protection principles have placed regulations on who can access and use personal data. Therefore, application of statistical disclosure control measures (anonymisation) to the data prior to its release is required for proper and secure data sharing.

In the first part, Jan Dalsten Sørensen from the Danish National Archives (DNA) will guide you through our anonymisation process and the thoughts behind it. The DNA contains a large collection of data, collected from both scientific research and from the public administration. Of course, anonymisation is a great tool to utilise the great scientific potential in these data without compromising the integrity of the data subjects personal information. However, it is not always easy to handle in practice. In this part of the event you will learn more about how we work in a dialogue-based way with the staff involved in the anonymisation process.

Second part of the event will consist of two 45-minute sessions and a Q&A session afterward. In this part of the workshop the focus will shift towards available techniques and how to apply them using sdcMicro, a free, R-based open-source package.

Some of the concepts and techniques that will be presented include k-anonymity, top/bottom coding and aggregation with practical examples and recommendations on incorporating anonymisation into research designs.

The audience will be given access to the exercises and presentations that were utilised for future reuse.

Preliminary programme:

13:00 - 13:10 Welcome
13:10 - 13:55 Anonymisation in practice at the Danish National Archives
13:55 - 14:00 Break
14:00 - 14:45 Basic concepts of anonymisation
14:45 - 14:55 Break
14:55 - 15:40 Working with sdcMicro
15:40 - 16:00 Q&A