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If you are asked to take part in one of our surveys, you might be a little concerned about whether the interviewer is a CSO official or not.

How do I know if they are from the CSO?
That’s easy: All CSO field staff working on household surveys carry a CSO identity card with their picture and name on it.

How is the information recorded?
There are three ways the CSO gathers information:

1. Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI). The interviewer will use a tablet computer to record your answers. This is an environmentally friendly system that makes everything simpler and quicker and make the results available faster. Your answers are securely transmitted directly from the tablet to back to our office.
2. Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI). We now use telephone interviewing on the Labour Force Survey (LFS). If follow up calls are needed on the LFS, they will be made over the following year– we’ll follow up your initial interview with a call in three months’ time.

If the CSO calls you the telephone number that will appear on your phone’s screen will be 021 601 8989.

The CSO interviewer will identify himself or herself and outline the purpose of the call. They will then verify some details with you before beginning the interview. You can rest assured that the data that the we gather by phone has the same levels of security and confidentiality as information gathered in person.

How do I know my information is secure?

The CSO takes security very seriously. We guarantee the anonymity of every respondent and confidentiality of survey answer we receive from people generous enough to help us compile our statistics. We’d like to thank you for your trust in us.

We take every precaution to ensure the security of the information that we collect. For example, the hard discs of all CSO tablet computers are encrypted to the highest industry standard. Those tablets also have a layered system of passwords to prevent unauthorised access and all data is transmitted from the tablet to CSO headquarters via a secure and encrypted data tunnel.

We make sure that the results of each survey are published in aggregate format only. Personal data at household/individual level is never published which means it is impossible for individuals or households to be identified. This confidentiality is guaranteed by law under the Statistics Act, 1993.

Because confidentiality is so important to our work we have developed a CSO Code of Practice on Statistical Confidentiality.

Want to know more?
Please contact us at:
Email: households@CSO.ie
Tel: (+353) 21 453 5000