Challenges to guarantee the

statistical confidentiality on

publishing public microdata

on education

Brasília-DF | Junho, 2018

▪ Approximation to the microdata access problem.

▪ International recommendations and principles.

▪ Mexican legal dispositions regarding the confidentiality and

accesss to microdata.

▪ How do we commonly deal with this problem?

▪ Taking care of microdata-restrictions.

SUMÁRIO

Approximation to the microdata access problem.

The community of researchers is one of those that can add more value

to statistical data when preparing analyzes that make it possible to

advance and deepen knowledge.

▪ For this reason, it is of interest for the statistical units support the

investigation.

▪ However, the analysis projects require access not only to the

published statistics, but also to the data at the level of the unit for

capturing the statistics in question.

▪ These individualized data, called microdata, are protected from being

supplied to third parties by the so-called statistical secret.

Challenges to guarantee the statistical

confidentiality on publishing public microdata on

education.

Personal data is the most intimate information of a person, it gives

identity within a social group; they define it, they make it unique and

they identify it from the rest of the people. The concept not only

includes identity data, but also aspects such as health status, good

repute, economic and property issues.

The concept of Protection of Personal Data is necessary because the

violation of a personal data can harm its owner, both on his person and

on his property. The facilitator of these violations has been technology.

International recommendations and principles.

The United Nations Organization, points out in the Principles

fundamentals of official statistics, the sixth principle:

“Individual data collected by statistical agencies for statistical

compilation, whether they refer to natural or legal persons, are to

be strictly confidential and used exclusively for statistical

purposes”.

The UN also establishes the following recommendations:

▪ Take measures to prevent direct or indirect disclosure of the

data of people, homes, businesses and other individual

informants.

▪ Develop a framework that incorporates the methods and

procedures that are will continue to facilitate anonymized

microdata to good researchers, preserving the principle of

confidentiality.

The protection of personal data

worldwide: OCDE Guidelines(1980)

Counsil of Europe Convention 108 (1981)

U.N. Resolution 45/95 (1990)

Directive 95/46/CE(1995)

Privacy Framework APEC

(1999)

Letter of the Fundamentals Rights of the

European Union (2000)

Guideliness of Armonization of the Iberoamerican

Network (2007)

International Standards (2009)

Lets start with the dilemma…

▪ In a context in which information is all, the Mexican State has assumed the

responsibility for the protection and guarantee of two important rights:

access to public information and protection of personal data. The

innovative and inherent feature of both rights is part of the strengthening of

Mexico´s regulatory and institutional framework, which motivated the

creation and subsequent consolidation of the National Institute for

Transparency, Access to Information and Personal Data Protection (INAI),

a fundamental institution for our country´s democratic advancement.

▪ The INAI is the Mexican State´s Autonomous Constitutional Body, which

oversees the effective protection of both rights, both at a national and

international level. This leads us to generate close collaboration networks

with other local and international guaranteeing authorities. This, in order to

learn from their good practices and to share our experiences on matters

related to transparency, access to information, personal data protection

and privacy.

▪ Article 4 of the Federal Law of Transparency and Access to public

Information (LFTAIPG) established: The human right of access to

information includes requesting, researching, disseminating, seeking and

receiving information.

All the information generated, obtained, acquired, processed or held by the

regulated entities is public and accessible to anyone under the terms and

conditions set forth in this Act, in international treaties to which the Mexican

State is a party, the Federal Act, the laws of the States and the regulations

applicable in their respective jurisdictions; only exceptionally it may be

classified as temporarily restricted for reasons of public interest and national

security, in the terms provided by this Act.

▪ Article 116. It is considered confidential information that which contains

personal data relating to an identified or identifiable person. Confidential

information will not be subject to any time frame and may only be accessed by

holders thereof, their representatives and Public Servants entitled thereto.

General Law on Protection of Personal Data

in the possession of obligated subjects.

Its purpose is that of establishing the bases, principles and

procedures required to uphold the right of any person to the

protection of his/her personal data held by obligated parties.

Obligated parties under this Law in the federal, state and local

sphere are any authority, entity, agency or body of the Executive,

Legislative and Judiciary Branches, autonomous entities,

political parties, trusts and public funds.

The State will guarantee the privacy

of individuals and must ensure that

third parties do not engage in

behaviors that may affect them

arbitrarily.

Article 6 of the law

establish:

▪ The protection of personal data, far from being seen as a

normative obligation, must be assumed as a commitment of

the public and private sectors to citizens, and to all people, as it

is a human right, enshrined in the Constitution.

▪ The challenge for responsible entities is twofold: on the one

hand, they must be kept up-to-date on technology, in order to

provide users of public and private services with access to

them; and on the other hand, they must guarantee that the

personal data they collect are duly protected.

▪ Complying with the above will strengthen the confidence of

citizens in public and private institutions, in addition to

improving and increasing access to the services they offer.

The public servants must provide

the Privacy Notice to people from

whom they collect personal data, or

inform them where to consult it, so

that they know the authority

responsible for their data is, in what

system they are stored, the use they

are given and the foundation for the

treatment of them.

The Secretariat of Public

Function request that:

“Confidentiality is one of the

Fundamental Principles of Official

Statistics. It is a top priority issue on

the policy agenda of statistical

offices and an indispensable

element to maintaining the trust

of respondents and thus ensuring

the quality of data”.

How do we commonly deal with this problem in Mexico?

▪ To have a first idea of what is at stake, two extreme forms are

considered:

▪ The first, apparently simple and effective, consists of providing

anonymous microdata.

▪ This practice has two drawbacks:

▪ Anonymization can make data individualized results useless.

▪ The deletion of the identification data already mentioned does not

guarantee that informants can not be recognized completely.

▪ At the other extreme, there is a second form, which is effective in

preserving confidentiality and statistical secrecy.

▪ It consists in the fact that it is the statistical agency itself that

manipulates the individual data under the direction of the

researcher and that provides only the aggregated statistical

results.

▪ This scheme transfers, in principle, the cost to the statistical

agency and for the researcher it represents a restriction because

it can not develop the feeling of the data that only direct contact

with them provides.

How do we commonly deal with this problem in Mexico?

▪ We face a non-trivial problem.

▪ It is about balancing -given the risk tolerance of statistical

authority,

▪ access to microdata (which includes the modalities and

procedures of that access, the cost and its distribution) and, the

risk of a breach of the confidentiality precept (whose probability

also depends on the modality and procedure of access, as well

as the type of data, the legal framework and the reliability of the

researcher).

▪ In the terms proposed, access to microdata is conceived as a

problem of risk management.

Examples of restriction for public microdata: National Plan for

Evaluation of the Learning (Planea): sixth grade, Elementary

and third of low Secondary.

▪ The Secretariat of Public Education has a National

Registration of Students (RNA), per article 12 of the General

Law of Education, the database has all the student names,

ages, genre, from all the schools in the country. This is

collected by each state every year.

▪ This is why should be too important that all public officers

should know and follow the General Law on Protection of

Personal Data in the Possesion of Obligated Subjects.

▪ When we implement a national test, each participant receives

an ID (folio), to review his results later so there is no way to

enter the microdata without it.

Teachers Performance Evaluation:

▪ In accordance with the provisions of articles 52, 53 and 54 of the General

Law of the Professional Teaching Service and the Guidelines to carry out

the performance evaluation of those who perform teaching, direction and

supervision functions in the Basic and Upper Secondary Education, LINEE-

05-2015; The Secretariat of Public Education carries out the publication of

the global results and the individual reports of results of the supporters who

participated in the process of Performance Evaluation in Basic Education,

school year 2015-2016.

▪ With the publications of results, the principles of legality, certainty,

impartiality, objectivity and transparency established in the Professional

Teaching Service are met.

▪ To consult the individual and global results it is necessary that you enter

your Unique Code of Population Registration.

COMIPEMS: is the process of selection of candidates to high

school that takes place in the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City

through a single call.

In this last contest, the participant need to

enter the registration folio and the Unique

Code of Population Registration.

▪ In the different evaluations, the folios (ID codes) are formed differently,

some have 9 digits some have 11. Different digits represent different

things and are done so the Secretariat can identify but at the same time

with the purpose of non public identification.

▪ Since the begin in all the evaluations, all personal data has been

forbiden to published, so the participant cannot be identified at all. All

microdata is only used for analysis inside the Secretariat only.

▪ If the Secretariat has hired an institute to administrate an evaluation, the

institute should follow the Federal Law of Protection of Personal Data in

Posession of the Particulars (LFPDPPP). The Law provides for

sanctions ranging from the warning (equivalent to a wake-up call), to the

imposition of fines from 100 to 320 thousand days of Minimum Wage

General valid, which is equivalent to about 18 million of pesos. Also,

depending on the seriousness of the crime, there could be civil and

criminal liabilities.

▪ Managing Statistical Confidentiality and Microdata Access:

Principles and Guidelines of Good Practice.

▪ UN Economic Commission for Europe, Conference of European

Statisticians,Geneva, 25 October 2006, 99 pp.

▪ Approaches, trends and international recommendations on access

by the community of researchers to microdata.

▪ www.unece.org/stats/documents/tfcm.htm

▪ www.sep.gob.mx

▪ www.comipens.com.mx

▪ www.snrspd.gob.mx

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