At the national level, Article 6 of Law no. 51-711 of June 7, 1951, as amended, on the obligation, coordination and secrecy of statistics, defines statistical secrecy,

its limits and conditions of application. These rules apply to surveys conducted by the official statistical service (SSP), whether or not they are mandatory. The exemptions provided for in this article are governed by law. As it stands, the only exceptions that remain applicable are those relating to the status of public archives for surveys and censuses, which authorize the disclosure of individual information contained in the questionnaires and relating to personal and family life and, in general, to facts and behavior of a private nature, after a period of 75 years for individuals and 25 years for legal persons. According to the law, this communication may not be used for tax inspection or economic repression.

Statistical confidentiality obligations also apply to administrative data that may be disclosed by INSEE or ministerial statistical offices under the terms of Article 7 bis of the aforementioned law, as well as to private data disclosed under the terms of Article 3 bis. In general, with regard to access to public data, confidentiality obligations relating to the protection of privacy or business secrecy, as well as to the protection of personal data, are guaranteed by law (Article 1 of the

Law for a Digital Republic).

At the European level, the confidentiality of statistical information is affirmed by Article 338 of the Union Treaty. "The compilation of statistics shall respect (...) the confidentiality of statistical information". Statistical confidentiality is also the subject of Chapter V of regulation 223/2009, as amended, and of Implementing Regulation 557/2013 as regards access to confidential data for statistical purposes. A Statistical Confidentiality Committee ensures the preservation of these guarantees laid down by law. Its powers are set

out in article 6 bis of Act no. 51-711 of June 7, 1951, as amended, on the obligation, coordination and secrecy of statistics, and chapter II of Decree no. 2009-318 of March 20, 2009, on the National Council for Statistical Information and the Statistical Confidentiality Committee. It is called upon to give its opinion on any question relating to statistical secrecy, and gives its opinion on requests for communication of individual data collected by means of a statistical survey or transmitted to the official statistical service, for the purpose of compiling statistics. It may also be asked by researchers to give an opinion on access to various

administrative data not related to public statistics. Chaired by a State Councillor, it includes representatives of the National Assembly and the Senate. The composition and operating procedures of

the committee are set by decree in the Council of State. The beneficiaries of data communications resulting from ministerial decisions taken after the opinion of the Statistical Confidentiality Committee undertake not to communicate these data to anyone. Any infringement of the provisions of this paragraph is punishable by the

penalties provided for in Article 226-13 of the Criminal Code.

To ensure the confidentiality of the tables produced for INSEE Results, the Tau-Argus software is used. This work is carried out by the PNCDEE unit, with the support

of the "information collection and processing" division

when necessary. It allows to control the secrecy of a given table as well as the links with other related tables.

Thus, for tables providing aggregate business data:

• No cell in the table should contain fewer than three units;

• No cell of the table should contain data for which one enterprise represents more than 85% of the total (dissemination rule defined on July 7, 1960 by the Statistical Survey Coordination Committee, predecessor of the CNIS, Conseil National de l'Information Statistique).

In addition, in Insee Results, the cells for which there are less than 20 traditional enterprises and 50 microenterprises are displayed with the wording "not

significant".