Joint UNECE/Eurostat work session on statistical data confidentiality October 2013 Ottawa, Canada Improvement of access to European microdata Outcome of the Project „Decentralised and Remote Access to Confidential Data in the ESS“ ESSnet DARA Maurice Brandt DESTATIS

2 Outline 1. Introduction 2. Goals and Content of ESSnet DARA 3. Results 4. ESSnet DARA Remote Access Pilot 5. Outlook

3 1. Introduction  Increasing demand for statistical microdata  Access to national datasets in Member States (MS)  Access to 8 EU statistics via Eurostat, (EU) No 557/2013  Request for detailed confidential microdata  For European statistics: access via Safe Centre in Luxembourg  Very high barrier due to local constraints  Feasibility study: “ESSnet on Decentralised Access to EU microdata sets” ( )  Idea: set up a secure network of national Safe Centres

4 2. Content of ESSnet DARA ESSnet on “Decentralised And Remote Access to confidential data in the ESS” (ESSnet DARA)  Project has started in October 2011, Duration: 25 months  Partners  Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et de Statistique, France  Hungarian Central Statistical Office, Hungary  Office for National Statistics, United Kingdom  Instituto Nacional de Estatistica, Portugal  State Statistical Institute Berlin-Brandenburg, Germany  Federal Statistical Office, Destatis, Germany (co-ordinator)  Funded by the European Commission (70%)  Task: Implementation of a pilot of a Remote Access connection from National Statistical Institute (NSI) Safe Centres to the EU statistics at Eurostat

5 3. Results  WP1: Handbook for National Statistical Authority (NSA) staff and researchers with description of workflow and accreditation criteria for Access Facilities  WP2: List of user and safety requirements for remote access  WP3: Cost / Benefit analysis  WP4: Proof of concept with a pilot remote access infrastructure with 5 access points in Europe to a central node in France (GENES) to a public use file of LFS - Infrastructure is implemented and tested - Test of alternative connections from MS to Eurostat (sTesta) - Investigation on other types of connection  WP5: Many presentations at meetings and conferences

4. Alternative Remote Access pilot  Central node at Eurostat was not ready to use; therefore we implemented a short term alternative pilot for testing purposes only  A network between partner MS with one MS (France) as central node with testdata  This pilot has been implemented for a practical test of the workflow and to gain experience to establish IT-infrastructure between MS 6

4. DARA Remote Access Workflow Roles and their main tasks RolesMain tasks Researcher Analysis microdata with different statistical software via remote access in the Safe Centre. Support Officer (SO) Providing personal guidance and support for the researcher during the whole process. Information Technology Unit (ITU) Setting up the remote connection. Communication only with the SO. Data Manager (DM) Organizing and preparing datasets for research projects. Communication only with the SO. Output Checker (OC) Checking and verifying the outputs. The researcher typically gets in touch with the OC when output is created. 7

DARA pilot model 8

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10 4. IT infrastructure for Remote Access Description of the ESSnet DARA pilot until the Eurostat final implementation

11  Clear recommendation for European remote access: The DARA pilot with Eurostat as central node ! or a system that fulfills all defined user and security requirements, whereas the DARA pilot is an example that has been tested according to the specifications  There are still investments necessary for the final system at Eurostat  Test of Eurostat implementation  Connection of MS  Member States need to agree on a specific remote access system – this can be only the final implementation!  Accreditation of Access Facilities, starting with NSIs  Build up a circle of trust and competences for microdata access for scientific purposes in Europe  Strategy, roadmap and timeline for the next steps after DARA is needed soon 5. Outlook

Thank you for your attention Decentralised and Remote access to Confidential Data in the ESS: Eurostat ESSnet Projects: Maurice Brandt Federal Statistical Office Germany Research Data Centre Tel