International Day Of Women in Statistics and Data Science

Privacy-preserving record linkage (PPRL) has a rich methodological literature on encoding, matching, and cryptographic guarantees — but comparatively little guidance exists on what happens after the match: how do researchers actually access, query, and analyze the linked data that results? This presentation addresses that gap directly, walking through real-world architectures used by statistical agencies, such as the U.S. Census Bureau's linkage key infrastructure and UK Trusted Research Environments, to control researcher access to linked data. We’ll cover how to handle potential uncertainty when analyzing linked data, such as producing confidence tiers, adjusting thresholds, and a novel approach to clerical review within the PPRL system. We’ll also walk through concrete querying structures such as linkage maps and secure enclaves and will explore examples of queries and their outputs. Attendees will leave with a clearer picture of the access-and-analysis landscape for linked data, practical considerations for designing their own linkage projects, and a better sense of how privacy shapes analysis.