How privacy may be protected in optional randomized response surveys

Sanghamitra Pal; Arijit Chaudhuri; Dipika Patra

doi:10.21307/stattrans-2020-014

How privacy may be protected in optional randomized response surveys

Sanghamitra Pal Department of Statistics, West Bengal State University, India ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5752-8282 , Arijit Chaudhuri Applied Statistics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4305-7686 , Dipika Patra Department of Statistics, West Bengal State University, India ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4318-1123 Statistics in Transition new series, vol. 21, 2020, 2, pages: 61-87 Published online: 5 June 2020 DOI 10.21307/stattrans-2020-014

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ABSTRACT

There are materials in literature about how privacy on stigmatizing features like alcoholism, history of tax-evasion, or testing positive in AIDS-related testing may be partially protected by a proper application of randomized response techniques (RRT). The paper demonstrates what amendments are necessary for this approach while applying optional RRTs covering qualitative characteristics, permitting a sampled respondent either to directly reveal sensitive data or choose a randomized response respectively with complementary probabilities. Only a few standard RRTs are illustrated in the text.

KEYWORDS

protection of privacy, randomized response, sensitive issues, Warner and other techniques

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