Table Servers: Protecting Confidentiality in Tabular Data Releases (2001)

Introduction:

Federal statistical agencies must balance concern over confidentiality of data with their obligation to report information to the public [5]. Advances in information technology threaten confidentiality, but also new technologies can protect confidentiality while meeting user needs in innovative ways. Here we describe table servers being developed by the National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) that disseminate tabular summaries of statistical data in response to user queries for marginal sub-tables of a large (e.g., 40 dimensions with 4 categories each) contingency table containing counts or sums. Table servers evaluate disclosure risk dynamically, in light of previously answered queries.