EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

STATUTORY RULES 1994 NO.

ISSUED BY AUTHORITY OF THE TREASURER 
Census and Statistics Act 1905

Determination made under Section 13

Introduction

Section 13 of the Census and Statistics Act 1905 (the Act) authorises the Minister to make Determinations providing for and in relation to the disclosure, with the approval in writing of the Statistician, of information included in a specified class of information furnished in pursuance of the Act. It is the responsibility of the Statistician to approve the disclosure of particular information. In doing so he is guided by an overriding concern to maintain the confidence and trust of the persons, businesses and organisations supplying information to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

The purpose of this Determination is to amend the Statistics Determination to enable the Statistician to better meet the demand from users of statistical information without damaging community confidence in the ability of the ABS to maintain confidentiality and respect for respondents' privacy.

Notes on the Clauses of the Statistics Determination

Clause 6 of the Determination enables the Statistician to disclose a list of business names and addresses to a government department or authority, where the Statistician has been given a relevant undertaking by the receiving agency. The undertaking must state that the agency receiving the list will "use the list only for specified purposes which do not involve the enforcing of any obligation or liability applicable under any enactment", "will not release. the list to another person or organisation" and may also impose any other conditions specified by the Statistician, which relate to the disclosure of the information.

The ABS releases lists in order to avoid duplication in establishing and maintaining registers of business and to encourage compatibility between statistics collected by the ABS and those of other government agencies by providing a single source of statistical units with specified characteristics defined in accordance with standard classifications. Such releases may also result in a

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reduction in respondent load as a result of greater coordination in activity across government agencies.

At present the list may include the following information: the name of the business or organisation; the address of the business or organisation; the type of legal entity of the business or organisation; the type of activity or industry in which the business or organisation is engaged; and an indicator of the size of the business or organisation.
It is clear that postcodes, which form part of the address, can be released. However, Clause 6 does not specifically permit the inclusion of geographic indicators (based on the Australian Standard Geographical Classification) or information derived from geographic indicators although, like postcodes, they would simply be a codified form of address. The wording of Clause 6(2)(b) is therefore being amended to remove any doubt that geographic indicators may be included in lists when requested.

The current wording of Clause 6(2)(d) refers to the type of activity or industry in which the business is engaged and it might be assumed that information about only one activity or industry is meant. However, many large businesses engage in activities across a range of industry classifications, and an indication of this range would be of considerable benefit to users because it would better reflect the nature of the operations of the business. To remove any doubt that multiple activity indicators may be included in lists when requested, the wording of Clause 6(2) is being amended to specifically provide for the inclusion of indicators of both activity and industry types.

Departments or Authorities receiving lists from the ABS have indicated their need in some circumstances to engage contractors to undertake some of the work associated with the purpose for which the lists were requested but, at present, Clause 6(3)(b) of the Determination stipulates that the client "will not release the list to another person or organisation". Clause 6(3A) is being added to allow such third party access, subject to stringent conditions stipulated in the written undertaking to be signed by each party granted access to such lists. The conditions imposed include that the list will: only be used for the purposes specified in the undertaking signed by the Department or Authority; not be released to another person or
organisation; and, if the Statistician so requires, be returned to the Department or Authority following completion of the contract.

Clause 7 of the Determination enables the Statistician to release information in the form of files of unidentified individual statistical records which would otherwise be prohibited by subsection 19(1) of the Census and Statistics Act 1905. With all such releases, all identifying information such as name and address must be removed, the information which is released must not be likely to enable the identification of the particular person or organisation

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to which it relates and the recipient of each release must, give an undertaking, before receiving the data, that the information will be used for statistical purposes only.

The amendment will align the wording of the Clause more
closely with Section 13(3) of the Census and Statistics Act
1905 and at the same time facilitate a more responsive release regime for users of microdata. The ABS practice in the release of unidentified unit records has been to reduce the number of items of information released, particularly items which significantly increase the risk of
identification (eg geographic region) or which would facilitate matching to known administrative records (eg whether the person is in public housing), and to reduce the level of detail that is released by collapsing classifications (eg releasing broad age categories rather than single ages). It has been clear for some time that these disclosure avoidance techniques have reduced the value of the unit data that is released to researchers for statistical analysis. The amendments to Clause 7 will allow the Statistician, when deciding what should be released, to take into account a tightening of the terms and conditions imposed on the recipient and agreed through a signed undertaking, rather than having to rely only on the information content of the unidentified unit records.

With this amendment the conditions specified in the undertaking signed by users will be strengthened. The undertaking will include conditions that no attempt will be made to identify particular persons or organisations; the information will be used only for statistical purposes; and the information will not be disclosed to any other person or organisation. The Statistician may also impose additional conditions on recipients of the information including a requirement to return it when the task for which it is released has been completed; and to grant access to ABS officers for the purpose of conducting a compliance audit concerning the terms and conditions under which the information is disclosed. Any information released under these conditions would be protected by Section 19, the secrecy provision of the Act, and a breach of such an undertaking would, therefore, be an indictable offence. The Privacy Commissioner will keep under review the appropriateness and desirability of his Office undertaking an audit of the Bureau's practices in disclosing
information.

Clause 7A of the Determination provides that where there is a need for the ABS to contract out work which involves access to confidential information, the Statistician may disclose confidential information (of a non personal or domestic nature) to another organisation providing the "disclosure is necessary to assist the Statistician to perform statistical processing functions". Such disclosure is subject to those employees of the receiving organisation, who may have access to the information, undertaking not to disclose the information to any third party.

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This provision was originally designed to cater for the involvement of contractors in routine processing functions such as data entry and despatch of questionnaires. However, in recent years there has been a growing need to obtain expert assistance in analysing highly. specialised statistical microdata. The existing wording of Clause 7A fails to adequately cater for access to ABS unit records of a non personal or domestic nature by expert analysts and researchers involved in worthwhile projects with a "public good" objective which the Statistician wishes to undertake. The amendment will facilitate the contracting of consultants by the ABS to undertake statistical analysis for the Statistician. Therefore, the wording is being amended to allow the Statistician to obtain assistance with any statistical function, rather than just "statistical processing functions".