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Confidentiality of information supplied to Statistics New Zealand

Only people authorised by the Statistics Act 1975 are allowed to see your individual information, and they must use it only for statistical purposes. Your information will be combined with similar information from other people, households or businesses to prepare summary statistics.

Background

Statistics New Zealand relies on the cooperation and goodwill of New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses to produce official statistics. Such cooperation and goodwill is maintained because Statistics New Zealand has always protected the confidentiality of the individual information it has collected.

There are three general provisions in the Statistics Act 1975 that govern the use of all information about identifiable people, households or firms:

1. information collected under the Statistics Act 1975 is only to be used for statistical purposes;
2. information collected under the Statistics Act 1975 is to be kept secure to prevent unauthorised access;
3. identifiable information is not to be published or otherwise disclosed.

Exceptions

Exceptions to these provisions are tightly prescribed by the Statistics Act 1975. The major exceptions enable the Government Statistician to consider the release of information when:

1. the individual concerned approves, in writing, disclosure of the information;
2. the information is publicly available elsewhere;
3. the information is collected in a joint survey with another government department, and the individual concerned does not object to the sharing of information with that other department;
4. it is to an officer of another government department, it has been anonymised and is to be used solely for bona fide research or statistical purposes pursuant to the functions and duties of that department. Any such officer must have signed the secrecy declaration of the Statistics Act and is bound by it in exactly the same way as are employees of Statistics New Zealand.

The Government Statistician can decide whether or not to release information under these circumstances.

See Statistics Act 1975 for a summary of the main parts and provisions of the act.

Specific information on this topic is available on survey questionnaires, schedules and in help notes. Further information can be supplied by emailing info@stats.govt.nz.

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This page last modified on: 05 February 2003