Download Better Information Strategies - Office for National Statistics

Census/NeSS Roadshows
March 2003
Better
Information
Initiatives
Better Information
Environment
The PAT 18 Report identified barriers to a
better information environment:
• lack of data coded by ethnicity,
• confusion on how to make a better use of
information collected whilst protecting
confidentiality,
• lack of consistent geographic framework and
tools.
Better Information initiatives
Policies are being developed to address these
issues:
»Ethnicity
»Data Access and Confidentiality
»Geography
Ethnicity
Demand for ethnicity data
• Neighbourhood Renewal policy
• Race Relations Act 2000
Some Context
• Ethnicity multi-faceted
• Ethnic group subjective (self and other
ascribed)
• Changing legal/policy environment
The National Statistics
Guidance
• Census (though geographical
complexity)
• National identity
• Nesting more disaggregated inputs to
standard outputs
Comparability with Census
• If direct comparison with the 2001Census
is the prime concern, and
• When only one question only possible
– England and Wales
– Scotland
– Northern Ireland
– GB (E & W)
– UK (no breakdown of White category)
Census Classification (E & W)
White
British
Irish
Any other White background
All White groups
Chinese or other ethnic group
Chinese
Any other ethnic group
All Chinese or other ethnic group
Black or Black British
Caribbean
African
Any other Black background
All Black groups
Asian or Asian British
Indian
Pakistani
Bangladeshi
Any other Asian background
All Asian groups
Mixed
White and Black Caribbean
White and Black African
White and Asian
Any other Mixed background
All Mixed groups
All Ethnic groups
Not stated
National Identity
• If national identity needed, and
• Two questions possible
– National identity first
– Reduced ethnic group question (no ‘White
Irish’ category)
– Cross tabulation of outputs
National Identity Classification
All ethnic groups (including White)
English
Scottish
Welsh
Irish
British
Other
All
Not stated
Nesting Inputs to Outputs
• Census write-ins to help design questions
• Most write-ins nest neatly into Census
classification, enabling output
comparability, e.g. Sinhalese, Somalian
• Some exceptions, e.g. Sikh, Kurdish
Data Access and
Confidentiality
Personal Data and the Law
• Government departments and local authorities must have the
vires to share personal data with a third party.
• Where a supplier has the vires to share personal data, this
processing must comply with the Data Protection Act. It must be
fair, lawful, necessary, not excessive, and physically secure.
• The ‘fairness’ of the processing depends on the information
provided to the data subject, and whether it is sufficient for the
data subject to make an informed decision about how their
personal information should be processed.
• It is in the spirit of the Act to process personal data only when
there is no alternative, and to minimise its processing if this is
the case.
Personal Data, the Law
and NeSS
• Vires, the common law of confidentiality, and the Data Protection
Act are together an obstacle to the sharing of personal data in
government.
• Government policies are likely to require new primary legislation
before they can be fully implemented.
• But for now, it is necessary and desirable that data suppliers
create aggregates and other statistics from their administrative
sources to a co-ordinated design, and co-operate in this way to
produce Neighbourhood Statistics.
• Our combined responsibilities to confidentiality and our duties
under the law require there to be agreements between data
suppliers and NeSS.
Data Access Agreement
• When data are processed to produce a Neighbourhood
Statistics, a data access agreement will define responsibilities in
every case:
– the responsibilities of data owners/controllers for the
confidentiality of the data, and
– the responsibilities of producers of Neighbourhood Statistics
for the confidentiality of the statistics.
• The Access Agreement will also state how these responsibilities
will be satisfied.
Responsibilities of
Data Owners/Controllers
• The role of data supplier to NeSS is to ensure that:
– your obligations of confidentiality to data providers are met,
– you have the lawful authority to provide statistical information,
– statistical information you are asked to supply is the minimum
necessary to fulfil the purposes of NeSS,
– you are satisfied that your data will be held securely,
– you are satisfied that the standards for disclosure control in the
statistics allow you to maintain your responsibilities for the
confidentiality of your data that underpins them.
• The Code of Practice and the NeSS data access &
confidentiality are designed to help data suppliers about these
matters.
Responsibilities of
Producers of NeSS
Our primary responsibility is the guarantee that no statistics will be
produced that are likely to identify an individual.
Which means that :
– It would require a disproportionate amount of time, effort,
and expertise for an intruder to be able to identify an
individual in the output, and add to the information about that
individual that is readily available in the public domain.
– It is an unacceptable disclosure risk for an output to allow an
informed member of the public to claim to readily identify
themselves or another individual data subject.
How will we meet our
responsibilities
1. Protection by design
• The release of Neighbourhood Statistics will not rely only
upon user access agreements for confidentiality
protection, though they may be employed for other
reasons. Disclosure risk is minimised when all protection
is through data structure and output design.
2. Co-ordinated releases and revisions
• All multiple releases and all revisions will receive an
original assessment for disclosure risk before being
made available as outputs.
How will we meet our
responsibilities
3. Employee confidentiality undertakings
• The methods of statistical disclosure control employed
will only be available to those subject to the National
Statistics obligation of confidentiality, where this
information would be of value to an intruder.
• All employed in the production of Neighbourhood
Statistics will be familiar with the disclosure policy and
the methods by which breaches of security can be
reported.
How will we meet our
responsibilities
4. The physical security of NeSS data.
• There should be no risk considered 'acceptable'
associated with the secure physical management of
NeSS data.
5. Releasing data from NeSS other than by viewing the
website.
• Neighbourhood Statistics will not release micro-data via
the website.
• With the approval of the data supplier, non-disclosive
aggregate data may be released via the website, subject
to the requirements of the Code of Practice.
Distributed Tools
Data Suppliers to NeSS
Today:
• ONS
• Central Government Departments
Tomorrow:
• Local Authorities - depending on the
scoping study results
The PAT 18 Tools Vision
• A package of tools, training and support
• Distributed and freely available
• Toolkit:
– Geographic referencing
– Disclosure control
– Format and Metadata collection
Geographic Referencing tool
• Guidance to cover key principles
• Accreditation of commercial software for
address matching/data validation
• ONS to offer a bureau service, if
required and feasible
Disclosure Control tool
• Disclosure control standards and
guidance document
• ONS to provide data owners with
specification routines for random
rounding
• Packages to address aggregation and
disclosure control for datasets
Metadata and Format tool
• ONS to provide a template solution
• ONS to complete work on developing a
metadata software tool
Timetable
• Fully developed set of tools to baselined
list of data suppliers by March 2004
• Phased roll out to other data suppliers
(incl. Local Authorities) thereafter - end
2004