Act No. 51-711 of 7 June 1951 on the obligation, coordination and secrecy of statistics. Available at https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000888573.

Article 6 concerns statistical secrecy: Subject to the provisions of articles 40, 56, 76, 97 and 99 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and those of article L. 213-3 of the Heritage Code, individual information contained in the questionnaires bearing the visa provided for in article 2 of this Act and relating to personal and family life and, in general, to facts and behaviour of a private nature may not, unless decided by the administration of the archives, taken after obtaining the opinion of the Committee on Statistical Confidentiality and relating to a request made for the purposes of official statistics or scientific or historical research, shall not be communicated by the depository service before the expiry of 75 years from the date of the survey or 25 years from the date of the death of the person concerned, whichever is the earlier.

A Committee on Statistical Confidentiality shall be set up. This Committee shall be called upon to give its opinion on any matter relating to statistical confidentiality. It shall give its opinion on requests for disclosure of individual data collected pursuant to this Act. The committee is chaired by a State Councillor, appointed by the Vice-President of the Council of State. It includes in particular 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. Beneficiaries of data communications resulting from ministerial decisions taken after the opinion of the Committee on Statistical Confidentiality undertake not to communicate these data to anyone. Any infringement of the provisions of this paragraph shall be punishable by the penalties provided for in Article 226-13 of the Penal Code.

For Internet collection, the collection site is completely secure and the standards for managing survey access codes are strict. For companies that choose to use paper, the data entry is carried out by the managers, with strict respect for the confidentiality of the data collected.

Before the data is released, confidentiality is applied. For company data: no results are published for less than three companies or establishments. Similarly, a result will only be disclosed if no company or establishment contributes more than 85% of that result. Primary deletions correspond to boxes that do not meet the above criteria. Secondary secrecy removes other boxes so that the data cannot be retrieved by subtraction with the margins of the tables. Statistical confidentiality is defined in Act No. 51-711 of 7 June 1951.