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Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Rev. 2

Jan Beise — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:05:21 GMT

By United Nations Statistics Division, 2008.

Since its earliest years, the United Nations has issued a series of international principles and recommendations on population and housing censuses to assist national statistical offices and census officials, throughout the world, in planning and carrying out improved and cost-effective censuses.

The Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 2 is divided into three parts: Part One - Operational aspects of population and housing censuses – covers mainly issues of census planning and management; Part Two – Topics for population and housing censuses – includes topics as well as their definitions and classification for both population and housing; and Part Three – Census products and data utilizations – is aimed at enhancing the dissemination and utilization of census data. The publication also contains a set of recommended tabulations on population and housing that every country is should produce at least once during the 2010 census round. There are also additional tabulations that countries may produce depending on their needs.

Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 2 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.07.XVII.8), 2008.

[available in English, Arabic, Russian]

Confidentiality issues in the EU Population and Housing Censuses of 2011

Jan Beise — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:16:00 GMT

By the Statistical Office of the European Communities and by Statistics Netherlands, 2009.

The Council of the European Union and the European Parliament have adopted in 2008 the Regulation (EC) No 763/20081 on population and housing censuses, acknowledging the Conference of European Statisticians Recommendations for the 2010 Censuses of Population and Housing. This Regulation states that "Member States shall take all measures necessary to meet the requirements of data protection. The Member States' own data protection provisions shall not be affected by this Regulation." The transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality is governed by specific EU regulations, ensuring the physical and logical protection of confidential data and that no unlawful disclosure or non-statistical use occurs when Community statistics are produced and disseminated. In particular, the new "EU Statistical Law" devotes an entire chapter to statistical confidentiality. In other words, what is considered confidential at national level, it remains confidential once transmitted to Eurostat and, if a country wants to transmit confidential data, this has to be done in accordance with the EU regulations in force.

The programme for data dissemination that Eurostat is implementing for the census round 2011 is based on an innovative approach. The basic data input is in the form of hypercubes, which are multidimensional tables with several dimensions. The size of these hypercubes has an impact on confidentiality issues: while for a set of predefined common bi- or tri-dimensional tables the disclosure control for census data could be considered (relatively) feasible to implement, such control becomes a real challenge as more dimensions are added.

Paper presented at the joint UNECE/Eurostat meeting on Population and Housing Censuses, Geneva, 28-30 October 2009.

2001 Canadian census experience: Shifting gears

Jan Beise — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:04:00 GMT

This paper by Statistics Canada describes how the agency is addressing both internal and external pressures to change its collection, processing and dissemination strategies. Using a number of pilot tests and phasing changes over the 2001 and 2006 Census cycles, the agency is moving away from a decentralized, manually intensive collection and data entry operation to a more centralized and automated approach. This will in particular address key concerns regarding confidentiality and security of personal census data.

Paper presented at the Joint ECE-EUROSTAT Work Session on Population and Housing Censuses (Ohrid, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, 21-23 May 2003).

Geographically Intelligent Disclosure Control for Flexible Aggregation of Census Data Production

Jan Beise — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:31:00 GMT

This paper by Caroline Young, David Martin, and Chris Skinner (University of Southampton) describes a new Statistical Disclosure Control method, the Local Density Swapping (LDS) method. New innovative methods of disclosure control are necessary to meet disclosure challenges which have been opened up by the growth, the availability and complexity of digital geographical information and its technologies.

Paper presented at the Satellite Meeting on Innovative Methodologies for Censuses in the New Millennium of the 56th Session of the ISI, Lisboa, 31 August - 2 September 2007.

Statistical Disclosure Control strategy for the 2011 UK Census

Jan Beise — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:04:00 GMT

This paper by Jane Longhurst, Nicola Tromans and Caroline Young (Office for National Statistics, UK) describes the strategy that is being employed by the ONS to develop an Statistical Disclosure Control solution for UK 2011 Census tabular outputs. Publishing aggregate or individual data carries always the risk that individuals or entities could be identified and confidential information about them could be released. The aim of Statistical Disclosure Control is to ensure that statistical outputs provide as much value to the users while protecting the confidentiality of information.

Paper presented at the Satellite Meeting on Innovative Methodologies for Censuses in the New Millennium of the 56th Session of the ISI, Lisboa, 31 August - 2 September 2007.

The 2011 Census: A Design for England and Wales

Jan Beise — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 04:55:00 GMT

This paper by the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics discusses the proposed design for a 2011 Census in England and Wales, drawing on the experiences and lessons learned from the 2001 Census, current world best practice, and the opportunities arising from electronic data capture and other changes in available technology. The paper also examines potential benefits and risks of the proposed design.

Paper presented at the United Nations Symposium on Population and Housing Censuses, New York, 13-14 September 2004.

The relationship between the fundamental principles on confidentiality and population censuses (UNECE)

Jan Beise — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 04:38:00 GMT

The paper by Heinrich Bruengger from the Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) examines the fundamental principles of official statistics in the context of population and housing censuses with special emphasis on the principle of confidentiality especially given the various forms of population censuses that exist across the world.

Paper presented at the United Nations Symposium on Population and Housing Censuses, New York, 13-14 September 2004.

Population and Housing Census in Singapore

Jan Beise — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:53:00 GMT

The paper by the Singapore Department of Statistics (DOS) describes the latest Census 2000 in Singapore and the adoption of IT advances and innovations in census operations to facilitate the conduct of the census.

Paper presented at the ASEAN Meeting on the 2010 round of Population and Housing Census, Siem Reap (Cambodia), 31 July - 2 August 2006.

Register-based 2002 Census of Population, Households and Housing in Slovenia: organization and data processing in the view of outsourcing

Jan Beise — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 10:24:00 GMT

This paper by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia describes the experience made in Slovenia by outsourcing some important part of the census activities including services in the preparatory phase, organization of field enumeration and in particular in the area of data processing. The outsourcing was deemed as success in the context of the Slovenian census despite initial concerns about quality and confidentiality of the data.

Paper presented at the 2006 plenary session of the Conference of European Statisticians (CES) in Paris (13-15 June 2006).

[also available in French and Russian]

Data warehousing in census dissemination

Jan Beise — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:46:00 GMT

This paper by the Spanish National Statistical Institute describes a new technological approach for data dissemination using the concept of "data warehouses". The main component of this information system is said to be the data structure where information is stored in such a way as to facilitate data queries rather than data processing. The paper describes the alternative technological solutions and the data modeling process. It also discusses the issues of an appropriate user interface and of data confidentiality.

Paper presented at the 2006 plenary session of the Conference of European Statisticians (CES) in Paris (13-15 June 2006).

The important role of research, evaluation and continuous improvement of census taking in Canada

Jan Beise — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:31:00 GMT

This paper by Statistics Canada describes the role that research, evaluation and continuous improvement play in the Canadian Census, focusing on the efforts that led to innovative approaches implemented for the 2006 Census. The new approaches include a more centralized and automated process of enumeration and data processing. The paper notices the increased demands of the population concerning the issue of confidentiality protection and the existence of high expectations of users concerning timely and detailed public good data, both of which should be able to meet only by continuous improvemenent of the Census methodology.

Paper presented at the 2006 plenary session of the Conference of European Statisticians (CES) in Paris (13-15 June 2006).