Date/Time: Monday, April 28, 2003, 1:30 – 3:30 PM

Location: U.S. Department of Transportation, Nassif Building, 400 7th Street, SW, Room 3328

Title: Statistical Disclosure Limitation: Releasing Useful Data for Statistical Analysis

Presenter: Stephen Fienberg, Department of Statistics, Center for Automated Learning and Discovery and Center for Computer and Communications Security, Carnegie Mellon University

Discussant: Nancy Kirkendall, Director, Statistics and Methods Group, EIA, U.S. Department of Energy

Abstract: Disclosure limitation has often been viewed by statistical agencies solely as a mechanism for "protecting" confidentiality, and not in terms of providing data that are useful for statistical analysis. A true statistical approach to disclosure limitation needs to assess the tradeoff between preserving confidentiality and the usefulness of the released data, especially for inferential purposes. In this presentation we discuss these issues, illustrate them with some recent methods for categorical data, and describe some of the research challenges that remain.