The State of the Art of Remote Access to Condidential Microdata in Europe

There are different ways to access and work with highly detailed and confidential micro-data. Researchers can work on-site in the facilities of the data providers, or they can submit their program code to the data provider where it is carried out on the servers of the data providers automatically, or by the staff of the RDC. A smooth way of working with the data is Remote Access (RA). The data stays at the facilities of the data provider and only a live stream is transferred to the users screen. At the same time the user can see the micro-data and can work directly with it, i.e. see intermediate results without delays. The FP7 funded European project Data without Boundaries (DwB) has carried out a survey about the state of the art of Remote Access in Europe. Eight RA centers participated and provided information about their solution with a focus on the technical point of view. The presentation will highlight and discuss the relevant findings of the survey. In addition, possible developments regarding Remote Access to confidential micro-data that are based on the existing solutions will be discussed.