New Zealand Statistical Association
2004 Conference

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Helen Stott and Irene Zeng
Statistics New Zealand

Confidentialised Unit Record Files (CURFS) for New Zealand

Statistics New Zealand has need to provide useful information for researchers and at the same time protect respondents information. Many countries have met some of the users needs to access unit record data by producing Confidentialised Unit Record Files (CURFs), but these have not been available in New Zealand. This presentation will describe the programme of CURFs that we are now setting up in the proposed Official Statistics Data Archive and Research Centre.

There are many possible methods used internationally for confidentialising the data, some of which will be described. A pilot study has recently been completed and the resulting file used by some researchers who provided information about the impact of various confidentialisations methods on the usefulness of the data, and we also looked at other ways of assessing the impact. The abilty to access CURFs will have considerable value for researchers and teaching statistics in the future.