Data Accessibility and Confidentiality in Population and Households Censuses United Nations Regional Seminar on Census Data Dissemination and Spatial Analysis Nairobi, Kenya, 14-17 September, 2010 Yacob Zewoldi, Eliahu Ben-Moshe

The ultimate goal of any data collection exercise, including censuses, is to safely guard the confidentiality of such census information, while maximizing the accessibility of census data.

Why is confidentiality important? Individual data collected by statistical agencies for statistical compilation, whether they refer to natural or legal persons, are to be strictly confidential and used exclusively for statistical purposes principle 6 of the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics

Long term benefits better cooperation from the public more data from the public and better quality improved accessibility to data and to higher quality data

How to guard confidentiality in a census operation? (i) Confidentiality in all aspects of data collection operations (ii) Legal framework (iii) Outsourcing (iv) Publicity (v) Training of staff and enumeration manuals (vi) Enumeration (vii) Data dissemination (viii) Database Transcript of information

Accessibility is a Census strategic objective The strategic objectives of the ceneus include: “implementing policies designed to safeguard the access of all users to census results”

Quality assurance Even if data are accurate, they do not have sufficient quality if they are produced too late to be useful, or cannot be easily accessed, or conflict with other credible data, or are too costly to produce

What is accessibility Accessibility is the ease with which statistical data can be obtained by users, and reflects the availability of information from the holdings of the agency in general, and census information in particular

Accessibility should take into :account The suitability of the form in which the information is available The media of dissemination The availability of metadata That the user has reasonable opportunity to know the information is available and how to access it The affordability of that information to users in relation to its value to them

About the education and training of users

Promotion of, and training on, uses of census data users may be willing to use the information but require additional training to more fully understand the data needs for training need to be identified early in the census planning process

Prepare in advance Identify areas and types of users in which the statistical office wishes to focus establish partnerships with other bodies to provide training Perhaps, consider also approaches other than classroom training to provide learning-at-a-distance opportunities

Topics to be addressed potential uses of census data how to access census data interpretation of census data at the broadest level, including the interpretation of its completeness and level of accuracy

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