Event – digital trace and survey data

Linked digital trace and survey data for secondary research: Potential and constraints

26 March 2026, 11:00am to 12:15pm

This free event is co-organised by the UK Data Service in collaboration with DIGISURVOR, one of SDR UK’s accelerator projects. It is the second in a series of webinars dedicated to data linkage and integration.

Overview

Social and political research has traditionally relied on self-reported survey data to understand public opinion and behaviour. Today, digital traces represent an increasingly valuable source of information for researchers. These are records of human behaviour online, from the products they purchase, to the websites they visit, to the content they post on social media. When we link these data with participant survey data, we can unlock new insights and avenues of research for social scientists.

The University of Manchester based DIGISURVOR project explores the technical, scientific and ethical challenges to making these linked datasets available for open research.

This webinar will outline the primary goals of the DIGISURVOR project, the work that has been achieved to date, and the value and challenges to data linkage that have been revealed.

What will the session cover?

• Background to the DIGISURVOR project and the growing popularity of survey-to-digital trace data linkage in the social sciences.
• Balancing data protection and open research requirements, key considerations when releasing linked datasets through Statistical Disclosure Control (SDC).
• The biases that can emerge when we link survey data with digital trace data, specifically in the case of participant social media.
• How we successfully link data sources together and how we can derive new sources of insight from two types of linked smart data: Social media (X), URL tracking (web browsing).
• The methodological skills required for processing these types of linked data.

By the end of the webinar, participants should have gained a greater understanding of the increasing use of survey-to-digital trace data linkage and the methodological and ethical challenges it can uncover. They should have developed an improved awareness of where data linkage sits in the context of open sharing and how linkage can introduce new biases into a dataset. Finally, they should have improved knowledge about methods for successful linkage of data and computational techniques for generating new variables of interest from linked datasets.

Presenters

Pierre Walthéry, UK Data Service

Pierre Walthéry is part of the Training and User Support team at the UK Data Service and is the organiser of this webinar series. He holds a PhD in Social Statistics, and his work focuses on skills at the intersection of traditional and emerging data analysis techniques.

Conor Gaughan, DIGISURVOR team

Conor Gaughan is a postdoctoral research associate at the Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research at the University of Manchester. He specialises in advanced quantitative methods for social and political research and his interests are in digital politics and communication.

Who should attend?

Members of the research community.

How to register

Book now for this event by visiting the UK Data Service website.