Confidentiality of Statistical Records: A Threat-Monitoring Scheme for On Line Dialogue

From a statistical data bank containing only anonymous records, the records sometimes may be identified and then retrieved, as personal records, by on line dialogue. The risk mainly applies to statistical data sets representing populations, or samples with a high ratio n/N. On the other hand, access controls are unsatisfactory as a general means of protection for statistical data banks, which should be open to large user communities. A threat monitoring scheme is proposed, which will largely block the techniques for retrieval of complete records. If combined with additional measures (e.g., slight modifications of output), it may be expected to render, from a cost-benefit point of view, intrusion attempts by dialogue valueless, if not absolutely impossible. The bona fide user has to pay by some loss of information, but considerable flexibility in evaluation is retained. The proposal of controlled classification included in the scheme may also be useful for off line dialogue systems.