Registration and procedure

Every researcher who wants to use the microdata service of Statistics Austria needs a valid contract with TU Graz. The following steps must be completed for this:

1. As a first step you have to create a free Microdata Center account.
2. You will then be able to access the AMDC research proposal page via this port. There, you must familiarise yourself with the Technical and organisational measures (TOMs) and sign the declaration of commitment. All persons involved in the project must have an account, know the TOMs and sign the declaration. The detailed proposal for your research project must also be submitted to this portal. Questions about the AMDC and the proposal as well as the cost catalogue can be found here.
3. The proposal will then be checked by Statistik Austria within one month and, in the case of a positive conclusion, a contract with the expected costs will be sent. This must be signed by the authorised persons and communicated to the library.
4. After the offer has been accepted and all parties have signed the contract, Statistik Austria starts with the data preparation and the technical arrangements.
5. Shortly before the planned start of the research project, there is a technical training of all persons involved and authorized ("onboarding appointment") by Statistics Austria.
6. The active research must take place within the virtual desktop infrastructure (maximum 5 years) and at the end of the project there is at least one mandatory output control.
7. At the end of the work, an output check is carried out: This checks whether the files that are to leave the AMDC would still allow conclusions to be drawn about the contents of the microdata used. If the control is successful, you can use the processed data, code and the like for publications and repositories.

The work with the data must not take place with one's own computer or in the familiar rooms, but must take place in a separate room of the organisational unit (OE) Library and Archive. The library, together with the IT services (ZID), provides the necessary infrastructure, but you must contact library’s service and information department (service.bibliotheknoSpam@tugraz.at).
Please use the following subject for your mail: Request concerning AMDC
The contractually agreed costs are paid directly by the library but must be passed on to the library from the institute or project budget.

Since all documents are in German, we would like to point out the following important fact: The use and analysis of microdata is subject to official secrecy ("Amtsgeheimnis") and will be punished under criminal law in the event of violations. Actions subject to this prohibition are: storing confidential data on external data carriers, photographing, transcribing or making a screen copy of confidential data or using confidential data for other than scientific purposes in any case constitutes a violation of statistical secrecy according to § 17 para. 4.
In short, you must handle the data carefully and mindfully and adhere strictly to the guidelines.