The ABS depends on the goodwill and cooperation of Australians, businesses and other organisations to provide information in response to its many data collections. A critical way of maintaining such cooperation and goodwill is by ensuring that information supplied remains confidential while being used as a valuable resource for the production of statistics and supporting statistical research.

The importance of this is recognised in the Census and Statistics Act, with confidentiality being a legislative guarantee to respondents. This is a condition under which the ABS exercises its authority to obtain the information it requires to meet the information needs of governments and the community generally.