NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20418
NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
Funding for this project was provided by the National Science Foundation, the Bureau of the Census of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income Division of the U.S. Department of Treasury, the National Institute on Aging of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Center for Education Statistics of the U.S. Department of Education, and, through their general contributions to the work of the Committee on National Statistics, several other federal agencies.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Panel on Confidentiality and Data Access (U.S.)
Private lives and public policies : confidentiality and accessibility of government statistics / Panel on Confidentiality and Data Access [of the] Committee on National Statistics, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council and the Social Science Research Council.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-309-04743-9
1. Privacy, Right of—United States. 2. Public records—United States—Access control. 3. United States—Statistical services. I. National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on National Statistics. II. Social Science Research Council (U.S.) III. Title.
JC596.2.U5P36 1993
323.44'8-dc20 93-31312
CIP
Copyright 1993 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
PANEL ON CONFIDENTIALITY AND DATA ACCESS
GEORGE T. DUNCAN (Chair)
H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University
JAMES T. BONNEN,
Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University
JOE S. CECIL,
Research Division, Federal Judicial Center
MARTIN H. DAVID,
Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin
RUTH R. FADEN,
Department of Health Policy and Management, The Johns Hopkins University
DAVID H. FLAHERTY,
Social Science Centre, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
F. THOMAS JUSTER,
Survey Research Center, University of Michigan
GARY T. MARX,
Department of Sociology, University of Colorado at Boulder
WILLIAM M. MASON,
Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles
DONALD B. RUBIN,
Department of Statistics, Harvard University
ELEANOR SINGER,
Center for the Social Sciences, Columbia University
WILLIAM H. WILLIAMS,
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Hunter College
Virginia A. de Wolf, Study Director
Thomas B. Jabine, Consultant
Wlodzimierz Okrasa, Staff Liaison,
Social Science Research Council
Robert W. Pearson, Staff Liaison,
Social Science Research Council
David L. Szanton, Staff Liaison,
Social Science Research Council
Michele L. Conrad, Senior Project Assistant
SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL
MEMBERS, BOARD AND COMMITTEE ON PROBLEMS AND POLICY 1993–1994
ROBERT M. COEN (Chair, Board),
Department of Economics, Northwestern University
PAUL B. BALTES,
Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education, Berlin, Germany
ROBERT BATES,
Department of Government, Harvard University
LAWRENCE D. BOBO,
Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles
WILLIAM CRONON,
Department of History, University of Wisconsin
ALBERT FISHLOW,
International and Area Studies, University of California, Berkeley
BARBARA HEYNS,
Department of Sociology, New York University
NAGAYO HOMMA,
American Studies, Tokyo Woman's Christian University
ELIZABETH JELIN,
Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad (CEDES), Buenos Aires, Argentina
JOEL SHERZER,
Department of Anthropology, University of Texas, Austin
BURTON H. SINGER (Chair, Committee on Problems and Policy),
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University
MARTA TIENDA,
Population Research Center, University of Chicago
KENNETH W. WACHTER,
Department of Demography, University of California, Berkeley
DAVID WARD,
Interim Chancellor and Provost, University of Wisconsin
ANNETTE B. WEINER,
Department of Anthropology, New York University
BRACKETTE F. WILLIAMS,
African American Studies Program, University of Arizona
ROBERT B. ZAJONC,
Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris, France
DAVID FEATHERMAN, President
COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL STATISTICS 1992-1993
BURTON H. SINGER (Chair),
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University
NORMAN M. BRADBURN (Vice Chair),
National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago
MARTIN H. DAVID,
Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin
NOREEN GOLDMAN,
Office of Population Research, Princeton University
LOUIS GORDON,
Department of Mathematics, University of Southern California
JOHN F. GEWEKE,
Department of Economics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
JOEL B. GREENHOUSE,
Department of Statistics, Carnegie Mellon University
ERIC HANUSHEK,
Department of Economics, University of Rochester
ROBERT M. HAUSER,
Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin
JANET L. NORWOOD,
The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.
DOROTHY P. RICE,
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco
JOHN E. ROLPH,
The RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California
KEITH RUST,
Westat, Inc., Rockville, Maryland
DANIEL L. SOLOMON,
Department of Statistics, North Carolina State University
MIRON L. STRAF, Director
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
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* * *
Founded in 1923, the Social Science Research Council is an autonomous, nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization composed of social scientists from all over the world. The Council's primary purpose is to advance the quality, value, and effectiveness of social science research. It seeks to encourage scholars in separate disciplines—e.g., anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, statisticians, and others—to work together on important topical, conceptual, and methodological issues that can benefit from interdisciplinary collaboration. Natural scientists, geographers, linguists, and scholars in the humanities also participate in many of the Council's activities. The Council's work is carried out through a wide variety of workshops and conferences, fellowships and grants, summer training institutes, research consortia, scholarly exchanges, and publications.
Acknowledgments
The Panel on Confidentiality and Data Access is grateful to the many organizations and individuals who contributed to its work.
Support for the study was provided by the National Science Foundation, the Bureau of the Census of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income Division of the U.S. Department of Treasury, the National Institute on Aging of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Center for Education Statistics of the U.S. Department of Education, and, through their general contributions to the work of the Committee on National Statistics, several other federal agencies. We also thank the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the U.S. Department of Tansportation for granting time, through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act, for Virginia A. de Wolf to serve as the panel's study director.
We thank the many federal government officials who gave generously of their time to attend panel meetings, provide documentation necessary for the panel's work, and answer our many questions: they provided an invaluable sense of the structure and needs of the federal statistical system. We also appreciate the help of researchers, privacy advocates, and others who provided
useful insights into nongovernment perspectives on data confidentiality and accessibility issues.
We are grateful to the Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) for their efforts in developing and collaborating on this study. Without the guidance and encouragement of CNSTAT director Miron Straf, SSRC president David Featherman, and former SSRC staff associate Robert Pearson, the work of this panel would not have been possible. We also thank David Szanton and Wlodzimierz Okrasa, who ably maintained SSRC's active role in the study after the departure of Robert Pearson.
We thank the participants and chairs of two workshops that preceded the panel's formation for their contribution to our work. We thank Richard Suzman and other staff of the National Institute on Aging, as well as staff of the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics for their support of the Workshop on the Longitudinal Retirement History, held in September 1987. We thank Charles Dickens, former head of the Surveys and Analysis Section, and other staff of the National Science Foundation for their support of the Workshop on Confidentiality of and Access to Doctorate Records, held in November 1988. We also thank the U.S. Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Institutes of Health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Office of Scientific and Engineering Personnel of the National Research Council, and their staffs for their cooperation in making possible the Workshop on Confidentiality of and Access to Doctorate Records. Both of the workshops identified important issues for the panel.
We also thank the participants and chair of the Workshop on Confidentiality of and Access to National Center for Education Statistics Data, and we thank the National Center for Education Statistics for its support of the workshop. We thank the participants of the Conference on Disclosure Limitation Approaches and Data Access. Both of these panel sponsored activities outlined issues for the panel's consideration.
Jean Shirhall helped to strengthen the presentation of our report through her skillful editing; we thank her for her efforts. We are indebted to Eugenia Grohman, associate director for reports, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, for her role in guiding our report through the review and publication process.
We especially thank the panel's staff. They not only functioned
as a harmonious team in drawing out the best in the panel members, but also contributed individually in noteworthy ways. Virginia A. de Wolf, study director, was especially helpful in contributing her organizational talents and energies to the conference, meetings, and workshop that the panel sponsored. Thomas B. Jabine, consultant, contributed his expository skill, experience with statistical agencies, and uncommon wisdom. Robert H. Mugge, consultant, helped with the analysis of background materials submitted by statistical agencies and prepared a useful background paper on informed consent and notification statements used by federal statistical agencies. Michele L. Conrad, senior project assistant, the panel's communication center, ensured that the project functioned both efficiently and effectively.
Finally, I thank the panel members, who gave generously of their time and wisdom to the deliberations of the panel and the production of this report. It has been rewarding to work with such a distinguished group of people.
George T. Duncan, Chair
Panel on Confidentiality and Data Access