Principle 7- Legislation

The laws, regulations and measures under which the statistical systems operate are to be made public.

Openness in all aspects of the production of official statistics is important for maintaining trust and credibility in both statistical agencies and the data they produce. In many countries the production of statistics is governed by

statistics legislation that sets out the authority and powers of a statistical agency including the

position of the national administration as well as its obligations such as publishing the results of collections and protecting the

confidentiality of information collected from respondents (see Principle 6). Such legislation may also set out the obligations of respondents to provide statistical information requested by a statistical agency.

Aspects that ensure the independence of an official statistical agency, such as the standing of the chief statistician or the selection of statistical methodology, can also be covered in

statistics legislation . Regardless of whether there is specific statistics legislation or not, there should be openness about the processes followed for the operation of official statistical systems.

Statistical agencies can also be subject to associated legislation such as for the protection of

privacy and archiving.