Abstract #300713

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JSM 2002 Abstract #300713
Activity Number: 375
Type: Topic Contributed
Date/Time: Thursday, August 15, 2002 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
Sponsor: Section on Government Statistics*
Abstract - #300713
Title: Cyclic Perturbation: Protecting Confidentiality in Tabular Data
Author(s): Stephen Roehrig*+ and George Duncan
Affiliation(s): Carnegie Mellon University and Carnegie Mellon University
Address: 5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15213, USA
Keywords: Statistical Disclosure Limitation ; Confidentiality ; Cell Suppression ; Controlled Rounding
Abstract:

We present a new method for protecting tables containing sensitive information. A sequence of alternating cycles is defined, and these cycles are used to perturb table cells. Each cell in a given cycle increases or decreases by one, depending on a coin flip, but the marginal totals remain fixed. Thus, each perturbation is equivalent to a set of mis-classifications. Using multiple cycles, each cell in the table has the "opportunity" to increase or decrease by a small amount. The sequence of cycles is publicly announced, allowing data users to compute posterior probabilities, given the released table, for all the tables that could have been perturbed into the released table. We compare cyclic perturbation with cell suppression and controlled rounding, using some common measures of disclosure risk and data utility.

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