In the spotlight - On irresistible forces and immovable objects

Article dated: 16 October 2008

In recent years, data owners and depositors have – quite rightly – been increasingly concerned with maintaining the confidentiality of the respondents who take part in their surveys. One outcome of this concern has been the removal of detailed geographical identifiers and variables from end user licence datasets. At the same time, driven in part by advances in multi-level modelling, there has been a growing demand from users to gain access to ever more and ever finer geographical information. With the help of the data depositors, all the ESDS services have worked hard to find a balance between the ‘immovable object’ of promised respondent confidentiality and the ‘irresistible force’ of user demand for access to potentially disclosive geographical information.

In the case of longitudinal data, finding that balance is especially tricky as a respondent’s location may change several times over the course of a study, making it more likely that a case will be unique not just in the sample but also in the population. As gatekeeper to the data, ESDS Longitudinal has worked alongside the data depositors to find solutions that minimise the risk of disclosing respondent identities and maximise the opportunities for secondary analysis. One solution has been to make some previously unreleased data available via the Special Licence process. The service now provides Special Licence access to six low-level geography datasets for the three birth cohort studies, with plans in place to release seven datasets containing geographical markers for the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) later in the autumn. Over 40 users have so far taken advantage of these previously restricted data becoming available.

Of course, the risk of disclosure is not the only consideration in restricting access to data collected as part of the major longitudinal studies. Data may be considered sensitive for other reasons. Many of the major panel and cohort studies are now producing – or soon will be producing – biomedical data from biological samples taken from respondents. The ability to control for biomarkers in social science analyses is likely to open up new strands of research and challenge conventional wisdom. In keeping with its policy to control access to geographical information very tightly, ESDS Longitudinal will endeavour to work closely with the key data depositors in examining ways in which sensitive biomedical data can be shared. The service aims to be at the forefront of developments in this field, certainly in terms of keeping social scientists abreast of what will undoubtedly be a changing research landscape.