The CSO has been trusted to gather data for 75 years so we can provide insights on Irish society and our economy. This trust is based on the assurance that we will protect the data we gather by adhering to the strictest rules and regulations. These safeguards around protecting your confidentiality are enshrined in both national (The Statistics Act, 1993) and European Union (EU Regulation 223/2009) law.
The CSO’s ability to compile official statistics is based on the extent to which individuals and companies trust the CSO with their data. We value this trust, which we never take for granted, and data confidentiality is one of our core founding principles.
Here we answer some of your questions about our approach to protecting data confidentiality.
All data shared with the CSO is strictly confidential and protected by law. The Statistics Act, 1993, and particularly Section 33 of the Act, provide strong protections for the public when it comes to protecting confidentiality. EU laws are also in place to offer additional legal protection.
The CSO adheres to the 10 Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, which are reflected in the Statistics Act. These Principles underpin the creation of official statistics and ensure our statistics are compiled using strict professional standards, methods, and ethical considerations. All of these regulations and safeguards mean that protecting the confidentiality of your data is at the heart of everything we do.
Under Section 21 of the Statistics Act, all CSO staff are designated as Officers of Statistics which means every staff member is legally bound to uphold the confidentiality of the data they have access to. All Officers of Statistics must sign a declaration of secrecy which means they cannot share or discuss confidential data and are subject to the provisions of the Official Secrets Act, 1963.
Access to all confidential data within the CSO is strictly limited to approved staff who are subject to a stringent case-by-case approval process.
As part of internal controls and protection, administrative data is pseudonymised before it is made available for statistical analysis. The pseudonymisation process includes the removal of identifying information such as name and address details and Protected Identifier Keys (PIKs) are used in place of identification numbers. This process protects the original identifier numbers while also preserving link capabilities across datasets. The process also involves rounding the date of birth to the first of month, which allows calculation of age while protecting actual date of birth.
Under the provisions of the Statistics Act, the CSO may provide access to the research community under strict conditions to pseudonymised Research Microdata Files (RMFs) to support evidence-informed research and policymaking.
When it comes to accessing RMFs by researchers, robust protocols are in place for the application and approval processes. For research access, only registered researchers from registered research organisations in Ireland can apply to access researcher datasets with more stringent approval processes applied. In addition, there are further technical safeguards in place around researcher access to ensure the confidentiality of the data. For instance, only a sample of the pseudonymised file is available to researchers. As well as these technical security measures, all names (personal and enterprise), addresses, PPSNs, and date of birth, will have been removed. Although these identifiers are removed, the datasets are still treated as confidential.
To further protect data security, all researchers granted access to CSO data can only use that data for statistical purposes. All such researchers are appointed as Officers of Statistics which obliges them by law to respect the statistical confidentiality of data to which they have been given access. The means they are personally responsible for protecting the data and if a breach occurs, the person responsible could be subject to potential prosecution under the Statistics Act.
The CSO is independent and collects and publishes data without interference from government or other groups. The Director General of the CSO is appointed by the President of Ireland and not the Taoiseach. The independence of the Director General on all statistical matters is enshrined in Section 13 of the Statistics Act.
Personal data provided to the CSO in the Census and other household or enterprise surveys is fully confidential and is protected by law, under the Statistics Act.
Data published by the CSO is published in aggregate form, which means no one person, household, or enterprise can be identified from the data we publish.
The CSO fully complies with data protection law. Read more about how we protect data.
We value transparency, telling people clearly what we do and how we do it