The dizzying and growing emergence of digital technologies and data processing techniques data associated, have led specialists from various fields to ask themselves that question.
Currently, our personal data constitutes a formidable source of economic resources for those who own it and know how to use it.
Knowing behavior and consumption patterns allows a huge variety of companies to better target and price discriminate the target audience to which they seek to offer their products.
But that's not all, the use of this type of technology allows us to go even further, by enabling the possibility of modifying behavioral patterns; for example, creating ads and incentives focused on the audience of interest, or using keywords that serve as specific deterrents for each group of people.
Or also, through the creation of credit scoring systems, such as the system Zhima Credit de Alipay. And the cases continue.
If the scenario – already complex in itself – were to regulate in favor of a certain notion of common good the relationships established between private organizations and individuals, the role of the State It would have an ambitious but defined objective.
The problem is that these types of tools can easily be adapted to influence the behavior of citizens at the level of decisions at the economic level, but also at the political and social level. Which represents an enormous challenge for any modern democracy, which, by definition, is a government of opinion.
For example, during 2019 there has been extensive debate about the determining role that the use of big data in the outcome of Brexit; as well as the social credit pilot project implemented in the Chinese city of Rongcheng, a record in which good deeds add points, and violations of the law subtract.
Beyond the novelty in the creation and use of data, the truth is that countries with a certain degree of development have been collecting data for several decades. statistical information about its population.
One of the virtues of this type of survey is that -generally- the aim is for the information collected to be representative of the reference population. The other is that a significant part of this information has been, since practically its inception, open access.
Representativeness is a desirable characteristic since it allows for a complete and unbiased picture; something that does not necessarily happen with the information collected in private databases (generally: the data that we voluntarily provide when we install an application on our cell phone or browse social networks).
But achieving this characteristic has a cost, and that is the deployment of resources that official statistics organizations invest in obtaining it.
Thus, the question about property rights personal information faces a complex panorama that is difficult to generalize. On the one hand, some companies may have information on the behavior of the population in territories where the state has no role.
On the other hand, this information is surely biased, given that - for example - not the entire population of a territory uses the same application, but rather a subset that is not necessarily representative. The opposite happens, in some cases, with public information.
In this way, the question with which this article begins has an enormous amount of nuances, both for its good consequences: for example, better planning of public policies based on evidence; as well as those that are undesirable: for example, a systematic violation of people's privacy (or even other smaller effects, such as the publication of biased or methodologically misestimated information).
News sometimes imposes its logic. Among the demands for more and better information, citizen data initiatives and open government, regulation projects for companies that generate profits with databases, among others; Sometimes we lose sight of the use, dissemination and understanding of existing data.
The report presented in this article has as target build on what is solid, by facilitating access and interpretation of one of the most important surveys in our country.
In Argentina, one of the best surveys available at the population level is the Permanent Household Survey. It is a national program for the systematic and permanent production of social indicators carried out by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses, which allows us to know the sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the population.
With the data obtained in this survey, data referring to official employment, unemployment, underemployment and poverty rates are regularly provided; among others.
EPH databases are an essential input for the reports and work carried out in our agency. However, for those who are not familiar with its operation, or only want to ask a specific question, its operation can involve a high entry cost. For example, what a motivated student in an undergraduate degree can do.
With the EPH Manual – Observatory (and the corresponding databases) we have sought to facilitate access to them, proposing a more intuitive use.
The EPH bases – Observatory They are presented in RDATA format, that is, to be used in the free code program R. The manual presents a sheet like the one shown in the previous image, for each variable, so that its interpretation is automatic. conclusive.
Each variable has been renamed with a non-coded name, and labeled so that its meaning can be read directly from the program interface. The same has been done with the internal values of each variable. Instead of presenting numbers only interpretable with the original EPH manual, the meanings of each value have also been labeled.
Likewise, new variables have been incorporated, which can be classified into three groups:
- Product of the calculation of two or more variables within the original base
- Product of the cross with data external to EPH
- Closed classifier breakdown product
The bases and manual will be available in the section dedicated to the Permanent Household Survey, as well as in the profile of the UNR Hypermedia Repository. Both will receive maintenance as INDEC surveys new quarters.
The question of who owns our data is still not resolved. However, we can invest in facilitating access to what is actually available, raising awareness about what is a desirable standard of information; and from that base, demand measures that, without inhibiting initiatives for better and more information, violate privacy and rights.
We hope with this small contribution to facilitate the work of our researchers in the broad field of social sciences, with interference in population data. Public university, always.