What is Microdata

Microdata are the units of data that aggregate statistics are compiled from. Microdata is data about individual people, households, or organisations and consist of sets of records containing information on individual respondents or other entities as opposed to the aggregated statistics appearing in a published report. Microdata represent observed or derived values of certain variables for certain objects. Microdata may also be data about other characteristics of the Pacific Islands such as geographical data. National microdata is usually available from censuses, surveys and administrative data. These data are most commonly collected by the national government or Pacific Island National Statistics Offices (NSO) and access provided by the NSO or the national archive. The data are collected at an individual, household, or institution level as appropriate (Desai and Cowell, 2006).  

What is the Samoa  Microdata Library

The Samoa Microdata Library is a central repository for Samoa statistical microdata, reports and documents. It is an online cataloguing and dissemination system of survey and census metadata and microdata. It is a service established to facilitate access to microdata that provide information about people living in Samoa, their institutions, their environment, their communities and the operation of their economies. SBS provides safe access to microdata via its Microdata Library microdata.sbs.gov.ws to enable research and analysis that benefits people. Microdata is a level of data that creates a risk of recognition/identification of individual people, households or organisations and as such must be managed carefully to protect against this risk.

Five Safes

The Microdata Library applies the Five Safes framework to ensure that sensitive microdata can be shared and used responsibly while protecting confidentiality. This framework considers the safety of projects, people, settings, data, and outputs, providing a balanced and practical approach to managing disclosure risk and supporting high‑quality research.

Safe Projects	Safe People	Safe Settings	Safe Data	Safe Outputs
Is the data to be used for an appropriate purpose?	How much can the users be trusted to use the data appropriately?	Does the access (IT and physical) environment prevent unauthorised use?	Is the level of detail in the data appropriate?	Are the statistical results non-disclosive?