Census queries answered
Anthony Woolhouse responds to concerns raised about the census
In the Friend (25 February) the letters from Dai Jenkins and Gerard Bane stated that the award of a large contract to Lockheed Martin to run the census might lead, under the terms of the Patriot Act, to the US government potentially demanding access to personal census data on the UK population.
This concern, if true, would have led many Quakers to refuse to complete their census questionnaire. It also raised a personal concern for me as I will shortly be working for the census.
I therefore contacted the Office for National Statistics (ONS), who are responsible for the census.
I received a comprehensive reply by email, which has reassured me that there is no risk that our personal census data will end up being used by the US government.
In the email, dated 1 March, the following points were made:
1. While Lockheed Martin UK is the prime contractor it will not handle any census data.
2. A specialist UK company, UK Data Capture, has been subcontracted to receive, scan and process 2011 census questionnaires.
The email stated that the ONS has put in place additional contractural and operational arrangements in the contract to ensure that the US authorities could not gain access to census data and ensure that the Patriot Act does not apply.
These include:
1. all data processing will be carried out in the UK;
2. all data is the property of the ONS and only UK/EU companies will have any access to personal census it;
3. the only people who have access to the full census dataset in the operational data centre will be ONS staff;
4. no staff from either Lockheed Martin or Lockheed Martin UK will have any access to any personal census data;
5. the Office for National Statistics controls access rights to all data systems;
6. everyone working with census data will sign declarations of confidentiality; and
7. independent checks by an accredited UK security consultancy of both physical and electronic security will be carried out for the ONS.
The Office for National Statistics commissioned an independent information assurance review. I have reviewed this and other Friends can do so on: http://www.ons.gov.uk/census/2011-census/2011-census-project/commitment-to-confidentiality/index.html
I believe for these reasons that Friends can take part in the census in the knowledge that the issues so ably raised in the Friend have already been addressed.
A census is an important data source for local and national government. In a hundred years time, when personal data will be made public, it will be nice for our descendents to see where they have come from.
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