On the basis of §30 paragraph 4 of Act No. 540/2001 Coll. on State Statistics, as amended, the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic (hereinafter referred to as SOSR) may provide confidential statistical data for scientific purposes (microdata) to the following groups of applicants:

• research entities, including 3rd degree students,
• students of the 1st and 2nd degree of higher education and preparation of bachelor's and master's thesis (final thesis)

The process to gain access to microdata has the following steps:

The applicant completes the relevant application according to the scientific purpose ( research entities, final thesis) and delivers it with the necessary attachments electronically info@statistics.sk or in paper form to the contact address

1. The SOSR assesses individually whether the applicant meets the conditions for the provision of microdata (eligibility to carry out research and development, scientific purpose, availability and possibility
2. In the case of a favorable opinion, the SOSR will conclude a written contract with the applicant and the microdata will be provided to the applicant according to the terms and conditions agreed upon in the contract

SOSR makes microdata available in two ways:

• In the Research Data Center (RDC)
• By transmitting the microdata file on a secure medium or by secure data transmission

Specifics of work in the RDC:

• Researchers working with micro-data in the RDC are instructed on how to generate such outputs that will not violate statistical confidentiality and they will be provided to them upon completion of their research work.
• Micro-data disclosed in the RDC have only direct identifiers removed, other methods of protecting confidential statistical data are applied to outputs generated by researchers if necessary.
• Microdata available in RDCs have a higher information value than microdata submitted directly to research institutions, since some additional protection methods (transcoding, local suppression, rank swapping, microaggregation) are applied to the microdata in the submitted file, in addition to the direct identifiers removal.