By: Nafi Nafissatou Pouye and Mety Metasabya Sahlu
Humanitarian organizations regularly collect individual survey data to assess people’s needs and respond to crisis. Such datasets, called microdata, are shared on HDX only after removing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in accordance with the HDX Terms of Service. Nevertheless, it is possible to make either a narrow estimation of survey respondents’ confidential information or an exact disclosure by combining what are called ‘key variables’ in the microdata. As this causes ‘disclosure risk’ or ‘re-identification risk’, it is a major concern when working with humanitarian data.
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