Office Notice 10/2016 sets out a “standard approach to the retention and secure disposal of statistical data (paper and electronic) and electronic storage media across the Office”. If data (paper and electronic) is to be retained, it needs to be justified.
The table below summarises retention rules for the RMF Project Application data that are set out in this document.
|
|
Collect |
Process/Analysis |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Paper Forms |
Scanned Image |
Database |
Project Data |
|
Project Data1 |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
4 years |
|
RMF Application |
N/A |
2 years if successful, indefinitely if unsuccessful, subject to official review every five years |
2 years if successful, indefinitely if unsuccessful, subject to official review every five years |
N/A |
|
Certifications2 |
Indefinitely subject to official review every five years |
Indefinitely subject to official review every five years |
Indefinitely subject to official review every five years |
N/A |
|
RMF Standard Agreement & Supplementary Forms3 |
N/A |
Indefinitely subject to official review every five years |
Indefinitely subject to official review every five years |
N/A |
|
Published Outputs |
N/A |
N/A |
Indefinitely subject to official review every five years |
Indefinitely subject to official review every five years |
| 1 Researcher-generated content (code, working files, outputs, etc) | ||||
| 2 Officer of Statistics Certificates, Research Organisation Registration and Researcher Registration forms | ||||
| 3 Add Researcher to RMF Project Application, Input and Output Request Forms | ||||
RCU requests that all applications are submitted electronically. Where applications are submitted on paper, the document will be immediately scanned and the paper form securely destroyed.
All hand-signed documentation (e.g. RMF Standard Agreements, Officer of Statistics certificates, RMF Renewal Application Form, Research Organisation and Researcher Registration forms) will be retained indefinitely on paper.
All scanned documents within RCU are required and retained for a minimum of two years for the proper and efficient administration of applications for access to RMF data under Section 20 (c) of the Statistics Act, 1993.
The RMF Application Form will be retained for a maximum period of two years after the application has been approved. If rejected, the application will be retained for as long as is necessary for the proper administration of the RCU processes. At the end of this period the data will be securely destroyed.
The RMF Standard Agreement and Officer of Statistics Certificates are evidence of access being granted at a point in time to specific RMF data for a specific purpose. As every person appointed as an officer of statistics signs a declaration of secrecy (S.21 Statistics Act, 1993), it is necessary to retain indefinitely a record of the data to which access has been granted.
Supplementary documentation such as the RMF Renewal Application Form, Research Organisation and Researcher Registration forms are scanned and stored digitally as a record of the signatories to the applications.
The RCU Microdata Portal and its backend database are an internal administrative system used to record submitted data pertaining to the Researcher, Research Organisation and Research Project as provided in the original RMF Application. It allows for the orderly retrieval of scanned records pertaining to the access to RMF data. For that reason, it is necessary to retain indefinitely details provided in the RMF Renewal, Research Organisation Registration and Researcher Registration application forms and unsuccessful RMF Application Forms.
All data stored within the Researcher Data Portal (RDP) is the property of CSO. All files, code, notes and documents created within the RDP by the researcher remains the property of the CSO. This data is archived immediately after the project has expired for a period of no longer than 4 years.
Published documents arising out of research carried out using CSO data is to be stored in a publicly available register indefinitely.