1. Prodcom ESTP course 15-16 October 2013
Confidentiality October 2013, Luxembourg
4-Confidentiality
Prodcom ESTP course October 2013

2. National confidentiality
Data is declared confidential by reporting countries:
When too few enterprises (typically 1, 2 or 3) report production of the heading
When one or two enterprises have a dominant share (typically > 85%) of national production
4-Confidentiality
Prodcom ESTP course October 2013

3. National confidentiality
Confidential data must be reported to Eurostat.
It is entirely up to the reporting country to decide which data should be marked confidential (passive confidentiality: FI & HR)
Eurostat accepts the confidential flags as they are set by countries All national confidential items are suppressed from the published national data in European datasets (marked with :C flag)
4-Confidentiality
Prodcom ESTP course October 2013

4. Confidentiality in EU aggregates
EU totals containing confidential data may only be published if the original confidential items cannot be derived from the total.
A set of rules for evaluating each case have been agreed with the Member States, taking into account the number of confidential countries, the number of producing enterprises in each one and the possibility of dominance.
4-Confidentiality
Prodcom ESTP course October 2013

5. Confidentiality in EU aggregates
Rule 1:
If there is no dominance, the EU total may be published if 3 or more countries are confidential.
MS1
MS2
MS3
MS4
EU AGG :C 10 15 12 13 50
MS1
MS2
MS3
MS4
MS5
EU AGG :C 10 15 5 12 13 55 60 :R
4-Confidentiality
Prodcom ESTP course October 2013

6. Confidentiality in EU aggregates
Rule 2:
If there is no dominance, the EU total may be published if 2 countries are confidential, as long as there are at least 3 units in total in the two countries.
4-Confidentiality
Prodcom ESTP course October 2013

7. Confidentiality in EU aggregates
Rule 3:
The EU total may be published if no enterprise exceeds its country’s dominance threshold within the confidential cluster.
4-Confidentiality
Prodcom ESTP course October 2013

8. Implication on EU aggregates
The dominance threshold is set individually according to the wishes of each Member State.
Countries may choose a dominance threshold in the range 85% to 100% (ex: IT 95%, LT 90%)
This is based on the assumption that only the dominant country is affected if the EU total is published.
4-Confidentiality
Prodcom ESTP course October 2013

9. Prodcom ESTP course 15-16 October 2013
Rounding of EU Totals
EU real total are not publish when
too few confidential countries
dominance of one confidential country
Eurostat applies rounding to it.
This allows the approximate value to be published, without being so precise that the confidential data is revealed.
4-Confidentiality
Prodcom ESTP course October 2013

10. Confidentiality charter
Member States commit themselves not to subsequently disseminate national data previously indicated to Eurostat as being confidential.
4-Confidentiality
Prodcom ESTP course October 2013