Empirically working scientists have a special interest in a very specific form of information, what is called micro data. However, due to data protection laws many data holders (among them the statistical offices of the Federation and the Länder as the largest data producers) traditionally publish only special user-tailored analyses, aggregations and deskriptive summaries of individual data. The possibilities for using the data available in the offices, however, generally go far beyond the traditional publication offerings.
If individual data contain spatial reference information, this is usually data that cannot be made available to interested scientists due to the aforementioned problem of data privacy. Those data may contain concrete address information or georeferenced point data. For example, in educational research, the spatial distance of individuals to potential educational opportunities is relevant. The same is true when studying the access of individuals to hospitals or pharmacies, which is particularly limited in rural areas. Anonymization of personal geo-coordinates (geomasking) should therefore have as little impact as possible on the analysis potential of a dataset.
To enable data access, the individual data must be anonymized using appropriate methods tailored to the users‘ requirements. The anonymized data must then satisfy two equally important objectives: Ensure sufficient protection of the individual data and retain their research potential as best as possible. Both objectives are of great importance for the users as well as for the data holders. Thus, the development of new anonymization methods must always take into account both objectives. In the seminar, recent scientific contributions trying to resolve this trade-off will be discussed.
- Lehrende:r: Rainer Lenz