Method and mechanism for data screening

A method of evaluating attributes of a data item pertaining to privacy interests of a data subject associated with the data item, comprising:

• receiving data associated with a data subject, the data comprising at least one data item;
• identifying two or more attributes for the data item, the two or more attributes indicative of likelihood of identification of the data subject based upon access to the data item;
• quantifying each of the two or more attributes for the data item with corresponding attribute values;
• and
• determining whether to store the data item in a database available to researchers based upon the attribute values by,
• establishing a threshold prior visibility level;
• and
• rejecting inclusion of the data item in the database if the attribute values for prior visibility exceeds the threshold prior visibility level.

A method of evaluating attributes of a data item pertaining to privacy interests of a data subject associated with the data item, comprising:

• receiving data associated with a data subject, the data comprising at least one data item;
• identifying two or more attributes for the data item, the two or more attributes indicative of likelihood of identification of the data subject based upon access to the data item, the two or more attributes comprising sensitivity that identifies a level of privacy associated with the data item;
• and
• quantifying each of the two or more attributes for the data item with corresponding attribute values.

A method for evaluating a data query seeking to access data associated with a data subject, comprising:

• receiving a data query seeking to access data associated with one or more data subjects, the data comprising one or more data items;
• identifying a combination of the one or more data items sought by the data query;
• and
• quantifying one or more attribute values for the combination of one or more data items sought by the data query, the one or more attribute values indicative of likelihood of identification of a specific data subject associated with the combination of the one or more data items, the one or more attribute values relating to a measure of visibility that an observer has about the data items.