Linking Sensitive Data Background

Abstract

This chapter covers background topics relevant to linking databases, with a focus on linking sensitive data. We first provide a short history of linking data, and then give an overview of the record linkage process with a ow chart and descriptions of the major steps involved when linking databases. We discuss aspects of data quality that can in uence the outcomes of a linking process, and we highlight the importance of data preprocessing in any linkage application. Next, we present measures that can be used to evaluate the linkage process with regard to linkage quality and completeness, as well as complexity and scalability when linking large databases. Linking sensitive databases can involve a variety of challenges, which we discuss in this chapter. We then introduce the topic of privacy-preserving record linkage (PPRL), and provide a formal definition. We also contrast the general record linkage process with the PPRL process and describe the additional requirements of PPRL over traditional record linkage.