European statistics

2007/0220(COD)

OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN DATA PROTECTION SUPERVISOR on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on European Statistics.

The aforementioned proposal was sent by the Commission to the EDPS for consultation on 17 October 2007. The proposal aims to revise the existing basic legal framework governing the production of statistics at European level with a view to adapting it to the current reality and also to improving it to meet future developments and challenges. In particular, it aims to simplify the existing legal framework for the production and dissemination of statistics at European level, through consolidating into one single instrument a number of separate texts of Community statistical legislation.

The EDPS welcomes the proposal for a Regulation on European statistics. This Regulation would give a firm and general legal basis to the development, production and dissemination of statistics at a European level. However, it would like to stress the following points:

  • the EDPS expects to be consulted on the sectoral legislation which could be adopted on statistics by the Commission in order to implement this Regulation, once it has been adopted;
  • a modification of the wording of Recital 18 should be implemented;
  • the proposed concept of ‘statistical data subject’ should be reconsidered in order to avoid confusion with data protection concepts;
  • the principle of data quality should be taken into consideration in the quality assessment of the Commission;
  • the ambiguity of the concept of ‘anonymisation’ of data should be considered in the context of dissemination of data.