Courrier des statistiques N11 - 2024

If you enjoyed learning about the history of Official Statistics in issue N9 of the Courrier on the theme of “Official Statistics and Democratic Debate (1946–1987)”, do not hesitate and dive into the second instalment. In a gradual and incremental manner, European construction molded the production of official statistics, a new era of openness and free access started up and new themes emerged.
Faced with an ocean of data available on INSEE’s website, how can it be made easier to navigate through it? This is the topic of the next paper, which highlights the essential metadata, the relevance of a catalogue and the possibilities of accessing “hypercubes”.
The operations lying beneath quantification in the energy sector are then unveiled, at a time of an ever‑increasing focus on the ecological transition.
The other four papers in this issue are parts of a dossier which revolves around the Répertoire statistique des individus et des logements (Statistical Register of Individuals and Dwellings, RÉSIL).
It starts out with an overall presentation of the RÉSIL project, describing its guiding principles. The second paper reveals the consultation process undertaken by INSEE, to ensure the legitimacy of this register and to respond to legal and ethical issues. Two steps of the RÉSIL process required special attention. Thus, the third paper of the dossier deals with record linkage: purposes, methodology, implementation and quality assessment. Finally, the last paper delves into an explanation of the ARC (accueil‑réception‑contrôle (Receipt, Acceptance, Control)) tool: initially applied to the déclaration sociale nominative (Nominative Social Declaration, DSN), it has been applied more broadly for the RÉSIL project.

Courrier des statistiques
Paru le :Paru le06/01/2026
Heidi Koumarianos, Olivier Lefebvre and Lucas Malherbe
Courrier des statistiques- January 2026
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Record Linkage: Purposes, Practices and Quality Issues

Heidi Koumarianos, Olivier Lefebvre and Lucas Malherbe

Record linkage reconciles individual data that are taken from various data files. It is used more and more frequently in official statistics, whether for analytical purposes, to investigate new subjects, or to improve production processes. Such statistical processing often raises issues relating to the imperfections of the data used and their volume.

Given the issues related to the compliance with data confidentiality, especially regarding personal data protection, an appropriate legal framework is required to implement them. A good knowledge of the data used and particular care in determining the parameters are also necessary to ensure the best possible quality of the results, since record linkage is never 100% reliable.

The quality of these matches is therefore a major issue for official statistics, and requires a direct assessment of the process, necessarily supplemented by a study of the statistical impact of the linkage on the data produced.