Additional Information

• Bylaws of ICPSR. Article I. Membership, 2. Benefits and Obligations of Membership, C. This section of the Bylaws stipulates that uses of statistical data acquired from ICPSR must conform to widely-accepted standards of practice and legal restrictions regarding respondent privacy.

• ICPSR responsible use statement. This statement specifies terms of use for ICPSR data, including the requirement that users comply with guidelines ensuring the protection of confidentiality.

• Draft recommendations for comment (PDF) -- Social and Behavioral Science Working Group of the National Human Research Protection Advisory Committee (NHRPAC). The Working Group has drafted several recommendations to provide guidance to IRBs and the research community. The recommendations focus particularly on the topics of public use data files, risk and harm, and third parties.

• Chapter 5, "Final Project Phase: Preparing Data for Sharing" in ICPSR's Guide to Social Science Data Preparation and Archiving, 3rd Edition (PDF 1.3MB). This text describes the principles ICPSR follows in altering datasets to protect respondent privacy. Also provided are examples of methods for eliminating the risk of disclosure in archived datasets.

• "Protecting Confidentiality in Archival Data Resources" by Christopher S. Dunn and Erik W. Austin. ICPSR Bulletin XIX 1 (Fall 1998), 1-6. This article considers some of the ways that confidentiality can be violated in data and describes mechanisms for protecting privacy.

• American Statistical Association. The American Statistical Association has a Web site specifically devoted to Privacy, Confidentiality, and Data Security.

• National Science Foundation. These pages focus on Frequently Asked Questions and Vignettes: Interpreting the Common Rule for the Protection of Human Subjects for Behavioral and Social Science Research.