Epidemiological and statistical secured matching in France

摘要

When we need to match different files, we generally face the problem of preserving confidentiality and respecting private life, especially if the files come from various sources. This problem may, on some occasions, dramatically restrict the utilization of administrative data for social statistics and research. In order to overcome this problem, some organizations, statistical institutes and research centers use the Secured Matching technique. Secured Matching is performed by using anonymous matching keys. One way to proceed is by using a technique for the irreversible encryption of the identifiers. The identifying elements common to several files are transformed by the same encryption process, allowing the matching to be done in an anonymous way by using the encrypted identifiers, with no possible link to the original identifiers. As an example, we will talk about the use of Secured Matching in France and describe some applications in epidemiology. We also show how these techniques of secured matching can be considered as a potential for innovation within official French statistics.