§ Dr. Marekasked the Prime Minister if she will amend the code of practice, Cmnd. 9270, relating to data collected for statistical purposes to prevent any such data being passed to the police.
§ The Prime MinisterThe Government statistical service has a long tradition of safeguarding the confidentiality of data obtained from its statistical inquiries. I am satisfied that the guidelines published in the code of practice, Cmnd. 9270, are sufficient to ensure that the information obtained from statistical inquiries will not be misused.
It is the responsibility of each Government Department to be satisfied on the appropriate level of safeguards, data security and anonymity to be applied to statistical data both by itself and by those to whom the data may be transmitted; and each Department is responsible for the fulfilment of its statutory obligations.