A Data Quality and Data Confidentiality Assessment of Complementary Cell Suppression

Complementary cell suppression has been used for disclosure limitation of magnitude data such as economic censuses data for decades. This paper examines data quality and data confidentiality characteristics of cell suppression. We demonstrate that when cell suppression is not performed using a proper mathematical model, it can fail to protect. Moreover, we demonstrate that properly executed suppression based on standard disclosure definitions can be vulnerable to other attacks, sometimes fatally.