Censuses

European legislation on population and housing censuses

The conduct of censuses is closely connected with the regulations on personal data protection and use of databases. Data protection means that the measures required to ensure personal data protection and statistical confidentiality are implemented in all stages of the processing of confidential data.

In national law, the conduct of population and housing censuses is governed by chapter 4, “Census”, of the Official Statistics Act. This chapter defines the additional data on persons and household members that are collected and processed due to the domestic need for official statistics.

Data protection requirements are defined following the legal provisions applicable to the processing of data for statistical and scientific purposes as stipulated by European and also national legislation. Compliance with the lawfulness requirement is the primary measure ensuring that data processing is done only on legitimate grounds.