Critics say Slovak census not anonymous, Personal Information Protection Office agrees

Concerns have arisen in Slovakia that the census data people are submitting could be abused. Even though the census forms do not include names, personal identification numbers, addresses or signatures, the separately attached code assigned to each form does make it possible to identify the person the form was issued to.

Today the Slovak Personal Information Protection Office (PIPO) exhorted state statisticians to cease requiring that people attach the identification codes to the forms. The Slovak Statistical Bureau responded that it considered the call, made through the media, to be manipulative and said it would wait to receive a binding instruction to that effect before taking action. Tomorrow will be the “moment of truth” which the data submitted is meant to reflect.

Activists have warned that citizens are being instructed to use the codes given them by census commissioners both on the paper census forms and when submitting data through the internet. Allegedly it is possible to discover sensitive data about specific individuals through these codes even though the forms themselves are anonymous.

“The population census is not anonymous. The identification code is linked to an individual’s name and there is no guarantee that the data and the name, both of which will be stored electronically, will be unlinked after the forms are discarded,” warned the Priama akcia (“Direct Action”) NGO.

The Personal Information Protection Office says opponents of the census in its current form are correct. “By placing the numerical identifier of that individual on the census form completed by that person, the person becomes directly identified, and the personal data on the form can be linked to a specific individual,” the office noted. PIPO has rejected previous declarations by statisticians that the census will be anonymous.

PIPO has also warned that the law regulating the census does not instruct people to attach their individual codes to the census form. The authority has also previously indicated that Slovakia’s law on the census violates EU legislation because it facilitates use of the census results for other than statistical purposes. EU norms take precedence over domestic regulations.

In its response, the Statistical Bureau stated that it had not directly received an order to cease and desist from PIPO but that on the contrary, during a recent meeting between representatives of both institutions, the statisticians were allegedly given time until a week from tomorrow to submit further documentation regarding their process. “However, by making this statement to the media, the Personal Information Protection Office has come to its conclusions on this issue earlier than agreed and without familiarizing itself with the documentation and analyzing it,” the statisticians’ statement says.

The Statistical Bureau previously declared that anonymity would be guaranteed for the data provided during the census. “Only a precisely delineated circle of Statistical Bureau staff and the external vendors who designed the automatic processing of the census results have access to the matched data,” the bureau claimed, insisting there was no risk of personal data being abused. The identification codes are said to be necessary to prevent the same individual from completing the census both online and on paper or from submitting more than one form should he or she live at more than one address.

Activist critics of the census have exhorted Slovaks not to participate in the census, to submit partial data, to provide untrue information, or to swap identification codes with others. They claim the anonymity of census forms completed online cannot be guaranteed. The census is taking place throughout the entire European Union this year and has already ended in the Czech Republic.

On the question of securing data, the Czech Statistical Bureau claims the database it compiles will be anonymous. It will contain no names, identification numbers, birth dates or addresses.

Just as in the Czech Republic, there have been problems during the census preparations in Slovakia. People who had either died or moved away were sent census forms in some Slovak towns and villages. Municipalities also noted that not enough forms had been printed. These problems were reported, for example, from areas of the country with large minority populations where members of national minorities were given the option of completing the census forms in their native language.

The Slovak Statistical Bureau has faced other criticism as well. When preparing the census it did not use updated data about addresses and their residents, complicating the work of bureaucrats in towns and villages. The Bureau defended itself, claiming the Slovak Interior Ministry’s offer to provide updated data was made too late.

Observers say the current coalition government could exploit the problems with the census to increase pressure on the head of the Statistical Bureau, Ľudmila Benkovičová, to step down. She was appointed by the previous government and the current cabinet has almost no way to remove her.