An Overview of Business Record Linkage at Statistics Canada: How to link the “Unlinkable”

Statistics Canada’s mandate includes producing statistical data to shed light on current business issues. The linking of business records is an important aspect of the development, production, evaluation and analysis of these statistical data. As record linkage can intrude on one’s privacy, Statistics Canada uses it only when the public good is clear and outweighs the intrusion. Record linkage is experiencing a revival triggered by a greater use of administrative data in many statistical programs. There are many challenges to business record linkage. For example, many administrative files not have common identifiers, information is recorded is in non-standardized formats, information contains typographical errors, administrative data files are usually large in size, and finally the evaluation of multiple record pairings makes absolute comparison impractical and sometimes impossible. Due to the importance and challenges associated with record linkage, Statistics Canada has been developing a record linkage standard to help users optimize their business record linkage process. For example, this process includes building on a record linkage blocking strategy that reduces the amount of record-pairs to compare and match, making use of Statistics Canada’s internal software to conduct deterministic and probabilistic matching, and creating standard business name and address fields on Statistics Canada’s Business Register. This article gives an overview of the business record linkage methodology and looks at various economic projects which use record linkage at Statistics Canada, these include projects in the National Accounts, International Trade, Agriculture and the Business Register.