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Spatial Demography Special Feature
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Confidentiality and spatially explicit data: Concerns and challenges
*Department of Sociology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405; Department of Sociology and Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524; Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248; and ¶Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964
Edited by Susan Hanson, Clark University, Worcester, MA and approved September 14, 2005 (received for review July 10, 2005)
Recent theoretical, methodological, and technological advances in the spatial sciences create an opportunity for social scientists to address questions about the reciprocal relationship between context (spatial organization, environment, etc.) and individual behavior. This emerging research community has yet to adequately address the new threats to the confidentiality of respondent data in spatially explicit social survey or census data files, however. This paper presents four sometimes conflicting principles for the conduct of ethical and high-quality science using such data: protection of confidentiality, the social–spatial linkage, data sharing, and data preservation. The conflict among these four principles is particularly evident in the display of spatially explicit data through maps combined with the sharing of tabular data files. This paper reviews these two research activities and shows how current practices favor one of the principles over the others and do not satisfactorily resolve the conflict among them. Maps are indispensable for the display of results but also reveal information on the location of respondents and sampling clusters that can then be used in combination with shared data files to identify respondents. The current practice of sharing modified or incomplete data sets or using data enclaves is not ideal for either the advancement of science or the protection of confidentiality. Further basic research and open debate are needed to advance both understanding of and solutions to this dilemma.
data preservation | data sharing | disclosure risk | social surveys | spatial social science
Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared.
This paper was submitted directly (Track II) to the PNAS office.
Abbreviation: Add Health, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
|| As part of a restricted-use contract, Add Health releases relative household location within primary sampling units, with no links to any other data. With these data, it is possible to map the characteristics of respondents in Euclidean space (20). Adding layers to such a map would increase not only its scientific value but also the security risk. Even without spatial links, the relative household location can be compared with census-based maps of the school-age population to narrow the list of possible sampling units. Extreme care must be taken in the presentation of any visual display based on these data.
** The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and many other research funders require some or all of their grantees to share data. The National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation policies on data sharing may be viewed at: http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/policy/data_sharing and www.nsf.gov/pubs/2001/gc101/gc101rev1.pdf (section 36).
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: lvanwey{at}indiana.edu.
© 2005 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
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