Securizing data linkage in french public statistics.

Administrative records in France, especially medical and social records, have huge potential for statistical studies. The NIR (a national identifier) is widely used in medico-social administrations, and this would theoretically provide considerable scope for data matching, on condition that the legislation on such matters was respected.The law, however, forbids the processing of non-anonymized medical data, thus making it difficult to carry out studies that require several sources of social and medical data.