From a seed to a forest: Microdata access at Statistics Canada

Abstract

Informed decision making on social issues requires current, comprehensive and very well-targeted research. Societies face two primary challenges in order to respond to this need for timely information – access to relevant data and a corps of qualified researchers to conduct the analyses. As part of a response to the challenges that confront Canadian policy research, Statistics Canada established the Microdata Access Division. The mandate of the Division is to manage and provide access services to data that are generally classified as restricted and to do so while respecting the legal and ethical imperatives that govern such access. This article describes Statistics Canada's approach to providing access while managing disclosure risk.