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Terms of Use
Data disseminated by the World Bank under its Open Data policy are provided under the Open Data terms of use. These terms of use apply to data provided through our Data Catalog. A number of concerns prevent the World Bank from providing similar unconditional and unrestricted access to microdata.

Microdata are unit-level data obtained from sample surveys, censuses, and administrative systems. They provide information about characteristics of individual people or entities such as households, business enterprises, facilities, farms or even geographical areas such as villages or towns. One main concern is the need to protect, as far as possible, the privacy of the individual respondents that have provided the data. Much of the microdata have been collected under a mandate provided by different kinds of national statistical legislation, which contain requirements for data about individuals to be treated as confidential by anyone collecting and using such data. Further, the microdata may be protected by copyright or other intellectual property protections under different intellectual property legislation. The Microdata Library adopts rules and procedures that are consistent with the type of legislation concerning this information around the world.
The Microdata Library operates as a portal. It disseminates micro-datasets from two sources: those that belong to the World Bank and those where the data have been generated and are owned by another agency. A number of micro-datasets have been provided to the Microdata Library by third parties including member states, international or regional agencies, and World Bank contractors. In many cases the arrangements that have allowed the datasets to be made available to the World Bank include limitations on how the data can be disseminated to users. The Microdata Library is obliged to put these arrangements into effect.
For these reasons, the Microdata Library disseminates data under some restrictions, the terms of which vary by source, as well as according to the individual characteristics of each microdata set. While the Microdata Library remains governed by the Terms of Use for the World Bank's datasets, it is subject to additional terms, described below. If these additional Microdata terms are inconsistent with the general Terms of Use, then these specific Microdata terms shall govern.

To protect the confidentiality of individual information and to meet the requirements of the data owners who provide the microdata sets, the Microdata Library has various types of access that may be applied to specific datasets. The various possible access policies under which data may be made accessible include direct access, public use files, licensed files, files accessible in a data enclave and policy defined by an external repository. Other data dissemination options are possible, although not currently implemented by the Microdata Library. These various options are described in generic terms below; the exact formulation of these policies may differ when applied by external contributing repositories.

Regardless of the access method in place for any dataset, all potential users are required to agree to a disclaimer, in which they agree to follow the Terms of Use applicable to the Microdata Library, and acknowledge that the original collector of the data, the Microdata Library and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for any use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.

The World Bank makes no claim about the quality of the data or its suitability for any type of analysis or use. The World Bank shall have the right, but no obligation, to monitor use of microdata obtained from the Microdata Library, and may decide, in its discretion, whether an abuse has taken place. The World Bank shall have absolute discretion to determine whether to sanction users for violations, and penalties may include restrictions or denial of further access to the Microdata Library, or any other World Bank Group resources.

Each item in the Microdata Library shall be subject to one of the following access and use categories, and users must agree to comply with those conditions associated with the items they wish to access.

Open Access
Direct Access
Public Use
Licensed
External
no Access
Relevant datasets and the related documentation are made freely available to registered and unregistered users under the following basic conditions.

The data and other materials provided by the Microdata Library will be used solely by the user, and shall not be redistributed or sold to other individuals, institutions, or organizations without the prior written agreement of the Microdata Library or the originating repository, and only subject to such conditions as may accompany such consent.
The data will be used for statistical and scientific research purposes only. They will be used solely for generating and perhaps reporting, aggregated information and not for investigations into specific individuals or organizations. In other words, the data shall be treated as a finished product - they may be used as a foundation for further work, but no reverse engineering or "upstream research" into the sources of the data itself will be permitted.
No attempt will be made to identify respondents or microdata providers, and no use will be made of the identity of any person, facility or establishment discovered inadvertently. Any such discovery would immediately be reported to the Microdata Library, to allow us to evaluate further use, apply further statistical disclosure control methods, impose further restrictions on access, or appropriately re-classify the data.
No attempt will be made to create links among datasets provided by the Microdata Library, or among data from the Microdata Library and other datasets that could identify individuals or organizations.
Any books, articles, conference papers, theses, dissertations, reports, or other publications that employ data obtained from the Microdata Library will cite the source of data in accordance with the Citation Requirement provided with the dataset.
The original collector of the data, the Microdata Library, and the relevant funding agencies bear no responsibility for any use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.
When downloading datasets published under the direct access policy, users shall signify their agreement to comply with the above-stated terms and conditions and agree that the use of statistical data obtained from the Microdata Library will conform to these widely-accepted standards of practice and any other legal restrictions to protect the confidentiality of respondents.

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