Census Bill

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The Census (Confidentiality) Bill is being rushed through parliament on a special fast track procedure in time for this year's planned census. This is despite the fact that an independent report on the confidentiality issues of the census by the British Computer Society has only just been published together with a government White Paper 1991 Census of Population: Confidentiality and Computing. The report from the British Computer Society says that for the second time in 10 years approval was being sought for a census before all the procedures were ready and without having an independent review body to check that it is being correctly implemented. Harry Cohen MP is proposing three major additions to the Bill: a watertight guarantee that all the information on individuals will be protected for 100 years; a ban on the combining of Census statistics with information from other sources which could lead to the identification of individuals; and the application of the subject access provisions of the Data Protection Act to Census information. Computer Weekly 31.1.91. Guardian 19.2.91.

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