Recent challenges to the ethics underlying official statistics in New Zealand

Abstract

The ethics underlying official statistics are best articulated in the twelve Principles of Official Statistics adopted by the United Nations Statistics Commission in 1994. While national statistics offices endeavour to adhere to these principles, they face different challenges in different countries. New Zealand has a small population (four million) of whom a high proportion (just under 15%) identify as of Maori (indigenous) ethnicity. Our ethical issues reflect our specific circumstances but it is likely that some other countries may face similar challenges. Three major sorts of challenges have arisen in New Zealand in the last decade: direct challenges to the principles of official statistics (first release and survey respondent confidentiality): distinguishing between business and personal information (for the self-employed with no employees; and when personal opinions are requested in business surveys) and the ethics of over-sampling, or requesting particular information, from some sections of the population (for example, Maori). Specific examples, together with the New Zealand response, are given for each of these challenges.