§ Mr. Andrew F. BennettTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many breaches of security occurred in collecting the 1991 census data; how many of these were by individual census numerators; how many were after the individual enumerator had passed on this information to the district co-ordinators; and how many individuals' census files were subject to security failures.
§ Mr. DorrellIn the 109,700 enumeration districts in England and Wales, in which some 20 million forms were collected, 24 incidents have been reported where there were actual or potential breaches of confidentiality of census documents. In eight of these incidents forms were stolen from enumerators or collected by people impersonating enumerators. Fourteen incidents were due to errors made by field staff. One incident occurred as forms were in transit between the local census officer and the census office, as a result of which two forms are missing, believed destroyed. In the remaining incident one enumeration record book containing addresses for an enumeration district was lost in the post. The total number of census forms involved was 253, of which 121 were recovered. Of the remainder, 117 were stolen or fraudulently collected and 15 are unaccounted for.
125WThere have been no breaches of confidentiality of census documents since the forms were delivered to the census office.
Two further incidents are under investigation, involving the alleged passing by census staff of details on other census staff to third parties.