Data Confidentiality Workshop
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WORKSHOP ON DATA CONFIDENTIALITY

September 6-7, 2007 in Arlington, VA

White Paper & Bio

Major Research Challenges in Protecting Data Confidentiality
Julia Lane, NORC at the University of Chicago

“Many believe that the problem of finding ways to meet the legitimate privacy and confidentiality
concerns of human subjects is the Achilles heel of the current data explosion” (Berman and Brady, 2005,p. 30)

The creation and analysis of high-quality information are core elements of the scientific endeavor.
No less fundamental is the ability to replicate scientific analysis. Yet the individual-level data on
human behavior that is the basis for empirical research in a wide variety of disciplines – including the biological, social, and some computer sciences - is often not accessible to others for replication and validation. Access to individual-level data on human subjects, or microdata1, is limited by legal and ethical protections developed and observed by government, research and professional organizations, and individual researchers and sponsors. In addition, as noted in a recent National Science Board report, researchers typically do not archive and curate their data sufficiently to provide for accurate replication of their work. In particular, the Board report states: “Often analysis depends not just on the sensed or computer-generated data, but upon the metadata that characterizes the environment and the sensing instrument. As a result of these innovative approaches, data collections often have value beyond that envisioned when the collection was started.(p14)” and “to make data usable, it is necessary to preserve adequate documentation relating to the content, structure, context, and source (e.g., experimental parameters and environmental conditions) of the data collection – collectively called metadata. Ideally,
the metadata are a record of everything that might be of interest to another researcher” (p20) Inadequate metadata documentation not only constrains researchers’ use of others’ data, for replication purposes,but also reduces the benefit to society of researcher access to microdata.

Ensuring the feasibility of high-quality research using microdata requires solving a series of technical and social challenges, namely:
1. The human beings who are the sources of the data must have their information protected from access and use by unauthorized individuals and for unauthorized purposes, and must be convinced that this protection is in place.
2. The custodians of the data on human subjects must have taken, and be confident that they have
taken, all reasonable means to protect the data.
3. Researchers must be provided with a research environment that facilitates high-quality research.
4. The benefits of researcher access to microdata must be clearly demonstrable to justify both the risk and the cost of providing that access.

Research Questions
1. How can elements from the computing and social sciences be combined to develop secure remote data access protocols that not only provide technical security, but also create an environment whereby researchers can do high-quality research.
2. How can mechanisms be created to measure confidence in data protection protocols?
3. What protocols can be developed to facilitate the documentation and dissemination of research, and hence demonstrate the benefits of researcher access.

Julia Lane

NORC

 

Biographical Data

Julia Lane is a Senior Vice President, Economics, Labor and Population Studies at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago and a Senior Research Fellow at the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

From August 2004 to December 2005, she was an Economics Program Director at the National Science Foundation. In that capacity, she was charged with coordinating the cyberinfrastructure strategy of the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate.

From January 2000 to August 2004, Julia was the Director of the Employment Dynamics Program at the Urban Institute. Together with her co-investigators, John Abowd and John Haltiwanger, she received several major grants during that period. These included a $1.4 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to study the impact of economic turbulence on firms and workers; a $700,000 grant from the Rockefeller and Sage foundations, together with the Department of Health and Human Services to examine the long run dynamic interactions of workers and firms in the low-wage labor market, and a $4.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a new dynamic employer-household database that enhance the social data infrastructure.

From August 1990 to December 1999, Julia was an Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor of Economics at American University. During the period 1997-2004 Julia initiated and founded (with John Abowd and John Haltiwanger) the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program at the U.S. Census Bureau. This program was the first large-scale linked employer-employee dataset in the United States, and has evolved into a permanent Census Bureau program (http://lehd.dsd.census.gov). She was also responsible for drafting and finalizing Internal Revenue Service regulations changes that permitted established the legal basis for a federally based employer-employee dataset as well as the state based employer-employee dataset.

Julia has authored or co-edited four books, and published over 50 articles. She has consulted with and worked with a number of national and international agencies, including the World Bank, the British Economic and Social Research Council, the National Academies of Sciences, and a variety of government agencies in the U.S as well as Madagascar, Morocco, New Zealand, Tunisia, Malaysia and Mexico. She has been invited to present or give keynote speeches at conferences, universities and research institutes in Austria, Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, and Sweden, as well as the US.

Julia has also received numerous awards. Most recently, she received the National Science Foundation Director's award for program management excellence, but she is also the 2004 recipient of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies Vladimir Chavrid award for excellence in the field of Labor Market Information (LMI) and Employment Security operations research. She is most proud of being the first recipient of the Faculty Member of the Year Award from the American University Student Confederation in 1996.

Julia is a native of England, but her elementary, intermediate and high school education were in New Zealand. Her B.A. was received from Massey University, New Zealand, in 1976; her MA in Statistics and her PhD in Economics were received from the University of Missouri in 1982. She speaks Swedish, German and French.