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".