Quoting from PSnewsonline Edition Number 481f. Updated Friday 13 November 2015.
Census planners sensitive to privacy
A Privacy Impact Assessment on the retention of names and addresses from responses to the 2016 Census of Population and Housing is to be conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
The ABS is considering retaining names and addresses from the Census as a key enabler for improved household surveys and high quality statistics.
According to the Australian Statistician, David Kalisch, the ABS had historically destroyed all names and address information after statistical processing of the Census has been completed.
Mr Kalisch, said the move would be an opportunity to improve and expand the information available to Australians.
He said it would enable higher quality and more efficient linkage of high value survey and administrative datasets with the Census, particularly for small or highly mobile population sub-groups of policy interest.
Bid to keep names and addresses
“It would also support a range of organisational efficiencies, such as the development of an address register, improving sampling, imputation and provider management and
support more flexible geospatial outputs,” Mr Kalisch said.
“To give full effect to these changes, the ABS would need to cease the historical practice of the destruction of name and address information collected in the Census.”
Mr Kalisch said the ABS proposed to instead apply well established separation principles to protect privacy by storing both name and address separately and securely from other household and personal data collected in the Census.
“This is an internationally recognised approach,” he said.
“Under this proposed approach, names will never be brought together with other Census data. Only anonymised versions of names will be used for approved statistical data integration projects.”
Mr Kalisch said that at the completion of the Privacy Impact Assessment process, and after considering all feedback received, a decision would be made on whether to progress with the retention of name and address from 2016 Census responses.
Feedback on the retention of name and address should be provided in writing to privacy@abs.gov.au by 2 December.
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