Data Privacy and Confidentiality

Abstract

Data privacy is an overarching concern in modern society, as government and non-government agencies alike collect, archive, and release increasing amounts of potentially sensitive personal data. Data owners or stewards, in the case of statistical agencies, often critically evaluate both the type of data that they make publicly available and the format of the data product releases. The statistical challenge is to discover how to release important characteristics of existing databases without compromising the privacy of those whose data they contain. Modern databases, however, pose new privacy problems due to the types of information they hold and their size. In addition to traditional types of information contained in censuses (see Census), surveys, and medical and public health studies, contemporary information repositories store social network data (e.g., cell phone and Facebook data), product preferences (e.g., from commercial vendors), web search data, and other...