Access to Business Micro Data

May , 2010

Policy Determinants

a) legal structure b) mandate c) interpretation and practice d) financial constraints.

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Legal structure (legislative and interpretations)

• Formal

Statistics Act

Makes Analysis one of the activities (legal interpretation of how Statistics Canada can make use of outside expertise in this activity).

Makes Violations of Confidentiality a Crime

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Legal structure (legislative and interpretations)

• Informal

The implicit contract between respondent and the agency—that what is being done with the data should offsets the costs of providing it or the costs of inadvertently breaking the contract.

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History

• Evolution of the History of Data Liberation (DLI)

• Why most progress on the household side? Differences in risk –stems both from nature of samples and

from the nature of the country—business data is far easier to crack than household data—and the consequences of a failure may be different.—there are also differences In the threats (there is an industry devoted to commercial spying).

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History

Differences in readiness of files—most household files prepared for immediate research use because the project had this goal in mind. Business files prepared as inputs in National Accounts processes—not always linked—or edited for research use because different types. They are often edited at a later stage and only partially—nevertheless, these other files are critical when it comes to validating the micro files for research purposes. This highlights the present need to provide some type of interaction between the team that develops and supports database development and the rest of the agency

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Usage

• Ongoing projects that make use administrative and survey data for policy purposes—by the Bank of Canada, Finance, Industry Canada, Human Resources Canada—some 10 projects a year.

• Extensive use by academic community—doctoral and post doctoral. The Economic Analysis Division alone supported some 10 projects last year.

• Procedures—applications, review by internal committee to see whether the data will support the project—and what it might cost to bring it up to standard—decision as to whether to support.

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Present Constraints

Centralization of Facilities Application Procedures Need to meet the Conflict of Interest Guidelines

of the Public Service Lack of Organized Funding

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Going forward—examining two avenues that would encourage more work• Development of a master set of business files that could

be used to examine more topics (possible because of ongoing changes in collection and editing processes)

• Development of Procedures to maintain the social contract—consultation with respondents and the Policy community.

• Development of funding process to maintain and develop files

• Reexamination of procedures for granting access—approval of projects and/or confidentiality procedures

 

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