Statistical Data Protection

Many agencies (e.g. National Statistical Agencies) routinely release large amounts of tabular information. Prior to dissemination, tabular data needs to be processed in order to avoid the disclosure of individual and confidential information. Techniques for data protection include cell suppression, controlled tabular adjustment, and interval protection. These result in both massive continuous and discrete optimization problems.

The group, with vast  experience in all of  these techniques, is recognized worldwide as one of most active in this field. It participated or is currently involved in three national and two European Union projects that deal with data protection. In addition, it also got more than six contracts with European National Statistical Institutes for the protection of tabular data. Among these we find:

• DwB. Data without Boundaries. Project INFRA-2010-262608, VII Mark Program of the European Union. 2001-2014.
• Research Contract C08182  with  IDESCAT (National  Statistical Institute of  Catalonia)   for   application of statistical disclosure control tabular data procedures to real tables released by IDESCAT. 2010.
• Very large-scale optimization for data privacy. Research Project MTM2009-08747, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. January 2010 - December 2012.
• Interior-point Methods for Large-Scale Optimization. Application to Statistical Data Protection. Research Project MTM2006-05550, Spanish Ministry of Science and Education. October 2006- December 2009.     
• Research Contract C08182  with  IDESCAT (National  Statistical Institute of  Catalonia)   for   application of statistical disclosure control tabular data procedures to real tables released by IDESCAT. 2010.
• Very large-scale optimization for data privacy. Research Project MTM2009-08747, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. January 2010 - December 2012.

• Research Contract C07809  with  Statistics Netherlands  (in collaboration with Statistics Germany and to work on a project funded by Eurostat) for extension of a CTA code for statistical confidentiality of European aggregates for animal production  statistics. September 2009- March 2010.

• Research Contract C07305  with  IDESCAT ( National  Statistical Institute of  Catalonia)   for   consultation  and   technical  assistance  in  statistical confidentiality of tabular data. 2008.

• Research Contract C07254  with  Statistics  Netherlands (in collaboration with Statistics Germany and to work on a project funded  by  Eurostat)  for  implementation  of  a  CTA  code  for  statistical  confidentiality   of   European  aggregates  for structural business statistics. 2008.

• Research Contract C07120  with  Statistics  Netherlands (in collaboration with Statistics Germany and to work on a project funded by Eurostat)   for consultation  and  technical   assistance  in statistical confidentiality  of European  aggregates for  structural business statistics. 2007.

• Optimization Techniques for Statistical Data Protection. Research Project TIC2003-00997, Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology. December 2003-November 2006.

• CASC. Computational Aspects of Statistical Confidentiality. Project IST-2000-25069, V Mark Program of the European Union. 2000 - 2003.