The value of research use of highly detailed micro data is increasingly recognized. As a consequence some countries have adopted new legislations to provide a suitable framework, other are moving in that direction though at different pace and with differences. A revision of the EC regulation is also under discussion to allow access to detailed European micro data. In the same time, equipments necessary to allow researchers to process such data in conditions of security have been set up in numerous countries though with differences in standards, procedures and equipments. National arrangements also differ as in some countries NSIs directly provide these services whilst in others the Data Archives may be involved in providing access. A distributed European remote access has recently appeared, as a solution to meet the researchers needs to access data across national borders whilst ensuring high security. The paper will draw the current landscape, evolutions and projects outlining the main issues to build such system. It will highlight the researchers needs for comparative projects requiring access across national borders and cooperation outside Europe and how the different solutions for a distributed remote access could meet these needs. It will emphasize the possible role of Data Archives. Finally, it will look to the future, stressing the increasing use of administrative and combined datasets and new challenges to be met.

Keywords: Remote access; Confidentiality; Infrastructures; Microdata

Biography: Paola Tubaro is a Lecturer in economic sociology at the University of Greenwich, London, UK, and a researcher at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France. She earned a PhD in economics with a joint award from the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre and the J.W. Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany (2004). Her current research focuses on social networks and their impact on the market mechanism, organisational behaviour, consumer choice and well-being. Her interests also include methodology of economics and social science.She is currently involved in Data without Boundaries, a European FP-7 funded project to improve access to governmental statistical data for scientific purposes. In particular, she is conducting a survey of researcher accreditation regulations, systems and practices across Europe. Before that in CESSDA-PPP, another FP-7 project (2008-9), she was leader of a workpackage that aimed to map arrangements for access to data for research throughout Europe, and to devise pilot solutions.