Caribbean census microdata are not easily accessible to researchers. Although there are well-established
and commonly used procedures ?technical, administrative and legal? which are used to disseminate
anonymized census microdata to researchers, they have not been widely used in the Caribbean. The
small size of Caribbean countries makes anonymization relatively more difficult and standard methods
are not always directly applicable. This study reviews commonly used methods of disseminating census
microdata and considers their applicability to the Caribbean. It demonstrates the application of statistical
disclosure control methods using the census datasets of Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago and considers
various possible designs of microdata release file in terms of disclosure risk and utility to researchers. It
then considers how various forms of microdata dissemination: public use files, licensed use files, remote
data access and secure data laboratories could be used to disseminate census microdata. It concludes that
there is scope for a substantial expansion of access to Caribbean census microdata and that through
collaboration with international organisations and data archives, this can be achieved with relatively
little burden on statistical offices.