Using microdata responsibly

ABS legislation requires that microdata is used for statistical or research purposes. You must not use microdata for compliance or regulatory purposes. Examples of statistical or research purposes include: 

• estimation of population characteristics to provide indicators of financial literacy of Australian households
• statistical modelling of predictors and correlates of employment and work performance among those with carer responsibilities compared to persons without these responsibilities
• use of data as input to mathematical models to enable analysis of impacts of potential policy changes in the area of health insurance
• study the relationship between disability and labour market outcomes to target future employment programs
• provision of statistical training to staff or students

We may ask you for additional information about your statistical or research purposes for the use of microdata.

Access to microdata can only be granted by the ABS. Microdata must not be shared with other individuals as this is a breach of the Undertaking signed by you or your organisation. Any person who needs access to microdata must apply and be approved by the ABS before accessing the data. This includes members of your research project team who will see, discuss or use microdata. Sanctions may be brought against organisations and individuals found to be sharing access to microdata with unapproved individuals or organisations.

Where researchers from different organisations are collaborating on a project, the ABS may provide permission to share specific microdata.

• basic microdata output: tables or other aggregated output (for example, averages and model parameters) may be disclosed, published or disseminated by the user

Examples of basic microdata aggregate data that do not reveal microdata and are not required to remain in a secure environment include:

• tabulations containing cells with 3 or more unweighted contributing sample units
• details of fitted models, such as regression parameters
• summary and test statistics from estimates
• linear and non-linear regression coefficients

When disseminating aggregated output or reports, you must ensure that you correctly attribute ABS microdata as the source. See Microdata user obligations for Licence provisions, copyright and attribution.

• unit record data (microdata) must not be disclosed or disseminated with anyone, and must be securely stored
• unit record data from basic microdata

• produced by grouping information into categories and combining values within these categories
• for example, a count of the number of people of a particular age (obtained from the question ‘In what year were you born?’).
• tables, means, medians, ranges and regressions are aggregate data

• a dataset of unit records where each record contains information about a person, organisation or other record
• can include individual responses to questions on surveys or administrative forms, which are characteristics of that record

You must not match microdata files where identifiers have not been provided for that purpose.

Different microdata releases may include information about the same record. For example a person may be selected in one survey and also be included in an administrative microdata file about people. In this case, identifiers will not be provided to facilitate matching that record across the two microdata files. You must not attempt to match that record based on their characteristics on the two files. This includes matching two ABS microdata files or matching ABS microdata with microdata from any other source.

An example of multi-level microdata file is person data in one file and household data relating to those persons in another file. In this case, each record on the person file will include a person and household identifier. This enables you to group persons into households, and to undertake research about those people as a household group. Merging microdata files is only permitted where identifiers have been provided as part of the release.

If you have been approved for more than one DataLab project, you must not use microdata files approved for one project in a different project.

You may want to add aggregate data characteristics to a microdata file. This may be appropriate, provided it is not undertaken in a way that assists identification of the record. For example, if median salary by sex and age was added to a person microdata file, this would not represent the actual income for each record but may benefit the research.

You may want to add aggregate data characteristics to a microdata file. This may be appropriate, provided it is not undertaken in a way that assists identification of the record. For example, if median salary by sex and age was added to a person microdata file, this would not represent the actual income for each record but may benefit the research.