Alice Lipowicz reports:
The Social Security Administration said it will create and release more than three dozen additional sets of data it is pulling from its information systems after scrubbing the data of personally identifiable information.
The agency has already released 22 datasets on Data.gov as part of the White House’s open government and transparency program.
In the next phase, SSA plans to create and release additional high-value datasets. The SSA outlines its plans in the “Data Inventory and Plan for Releasing High-Value Data” report posted on its website.
Read more on Federal Computer.
I had an immediate feeling of dread about the possibility of reidentification of individuals, but the report says:
“We will extract reports that contain summarized data so that even if the public combines our datasets with other data, no violations of privacy can occur,” the report states.
Okay, I admire their intent, and I hope they’re right, but we’ll only know in time after researchers take a stab at reidentification.