Enhanced controlled tabular adjustment

Statistical agencies collect data from individuals and businesses, and deliver information to the society based on these data. A fundamental feature to consider when releasing information is the “protection” of sensitive values, since too many details could disseminate private information from respondents and therefore violate their rights. Another feature to consider when releasing information is the “utility” to a data user, as a scientist may need this information for research or a politician for making decisions. Clearly the more details there are in the output, the more useful it is, but it is also less protected. This paper discusses a new technique called Enhanced Controlled Tabular Adjustment (ECTA) to ensure that an output is both protected and useful. This technique has been motivated by another approach in the literature of the last decade, and both are compared and evaluated on a set of benchmark instances.