Synonyms
Individual data
Definition
A microdata file V with s respondents and t attributes is an s × t matrix where Vij is the value of attribute j for respondent i. Attributes can be numerical (e.g., age, salary) or categorical (e.g., gender, job).
Key Points
The attributes in a microdata set can be classified in four categories which are not necessarily disjoint [1, 2]:
- 1.
Identifiers. These are attributes that unambiguously identify the respondent. Examples are the passport number, social security number, name-surname, etc.
- 2.
Quasi-identifiers or key attributes. These are attributes which identify the respondent with some degree of ambiguity. (Nonetheless, a combination of quasi-identifiers may provide unambiguous identification.) Examples are address, gender, age, telephone number, etc.
- 3.
Confidential outcome attributes. These are attributes which contain sensitive information on the respondent. Examples are salary, religion, political affiliation, health condition, etc.
- 4.
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Recommended Reading
Dalenius T. The invasion of privacy problem and statistics production: an overview. Statistik Tidskrift. 1974;12:213–25.
Samarati P. Protecting respondents’; identities in microdata release. IEEE Trans Knowl Data Eng. 2001;13(6):1010–27.
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© 2018 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
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Domingo-Ferrer, J. (2018). Microdata. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_1494
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_1494
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