All Times ET
Program is Subject to Change
TBD
Improving Access to Statistics Canada Business Data (308050)
*Steven Keir Thomas, Statistics CanadaKeywords: Confidentiality, suppression, perturbation, sensitivity, synthetic data
Statistics Canada is implementing transformational change to its approach to protect business data. For some business surveys, the use of complementary cell suppression (CCS) for tabular results will be phased out entirely. To this end, Statistics Canada has starting releasing business data protected by perturbation methods that balance the precision of the estimate with the uncertainty associated with a contributor’s value. For those business surveys that continue to use CCS, Statistics Canada is improving both the assessment of sensitivity and the implementation of the suppression pattern. To meet the needs of a broader group of researchers, Statistics Canada is examining solutions to release microdata. Synthetic business data is being examined, while other options within the paradigm of the five safes are also being tested and implemented.