Applying for access to microdata

Application for institutional authorisation

To get access to microdata your institution needs to be authorized. The head of your institution can submit a request to the Director General of Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Requirements for authorisations can be found in the application form. Access can be provided for up to three years. After that, your organisation may request renewal.

You can send the form application for access to microdata – form for organisations to AanvraagMicrodata@cbs.nl

Start a project

Has your organisation been authorised to work with microdata? Then you can submit an application form to start a project. Please fill in the Research proposal (Annex 1) and Annexes 2, 3 and 4. The downloadable files can be found underneath. Please mail these four files to microdata@cbs.nl. You don’t have to fill in the form completely when it’s your first application, we will contact you and help you further.

Project applications shall in any case be assessed on the following criteria:

• The institution has a valid authorisation to access CBS microdata.
• The microdata are to be used solely for statistical purposes, i.e. not for administrative, judicial or fiscal purposes, nor for control purposes against individuals, companies or institutions.
• In view of, among other things, the principle of purpose limitation as prescribed by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the institution must submit a well-defined research description (which may also be of a global nature in the case of exploratory research).
• The institution is responsible for publication of the research results and shall indicate when and how publication will take place.
• It must be plausible that CBS microdata can provide answers to at least a significant portion of the research questions.
• In case the institution provides its own datasets to be linked with CBS microdata, these datasets must have been obtained in a legal manner and permission must be in place for providing these to CBS and for using them in research.
• CBS cannot be held accountable for content and quality of the research project.