Security of information processing: implications from social research

Abstract

Many social research programs are characterized by a stringent requirement that identifiable data collected on the subjects of research be kept confidential. This requirement, coupled with the increasing number of sensitive, sometimes controversial research efforts, has stimulated social scientists' interest in legal, administrative, and technical methods for assuring that confidentiality is maintained. We concern ourselves primarily with the technical methods in this paper, treating "security" as a partial operationalization of the notion of confidentiality.