CROS
Collaboration in Research and Methodology for Official Statistics
Main objectives: to study the feasibility of setting up a network of Safe Centres that enables access to confidential microdata sets for research purposes throughout EU countries.
The aim of the ESSnet project DARA is to establish a secure channel from a safe centre within a NSI to the safe server at Eurostat so that researchers can use confidential community statistics in their own Member States without traveling to Luxembourg.
The Data without Boundaries (DwB) project aims to an integrated model for accessing official data, a model where the best solutions for access are available irrespective of national boundaries and flexible enough to fit national arrangements.
Microdata consist of sets of records containing information on individual respondents. To protect the anonymity of respondents (persons, households, organisations), the access to microdata is restricted. Usually access to microdata is limited to researchers.
Types of microdata
Public Use Files (PUFs) consist of sets of records containing information on individual persons, households or business entities (microdata). The files are created to allow the general public to get familiar with statistical microdata files. The files are prepared in such a way that individual entities cannot be identified; this goes with a loss in information value.
Public Use Files of EU-SILC and EU -LFS data