Statistical Disclosure Risk: Separating Potential and Harm

Statistical agencies are keen to devise ways to provide research access to data while protecting confidentiality. Although methods of statistical disclosure risk assessment are now well established in the statistical science literature, the integration of these methods by agencies into a general scientific basis for their practice still proves difficult. This paper seeks to review and clarify the role of statistical science in the conceptual foundations of disclosure risk assessment in an agency’s decision making. Disclosure risk is broken down into disclosure potential, a measure of the ability to achieve true disclosure, and disclosure harm. It is argued that statistical science is most suited to assessing the former. A framework for this assessment is presented. The paper argues that the intruder’s decision making and behaviour may be separated from this framework, provided appropriate account is taken of the nature of potential intruder attacks in the definition of disclosure potential.