The CSO has been trusted for 75 years and counting to gather, analyse, and publish statistics and insights about Ireland’s society, economy, and environment.
Our methods might have changed over the years, but our commitment to confidentiality, accuracy, quality, transparency, and independence remains the same.
Protecting your confidentiality is at the heart of everything we do.
The CSO was established to provide independent, accurate, and verifiable facts about our society and economy. Our independence to publish statistical analysis regardless of what the data says is protected by law.
Our commitment to safeguarding data confidentiality is a core principle of our work, and is underpinned by the protections enshrined in Irish and European law.
The main differences between the CSO and other data providers are our legal standing, our rigorous quality controls, and stringent regulation. We adhere to the highest international standards on how we gather, protect, and publish data, and we clearly state our methodologies and sources. Our statistics are independently verified and checked by international bodies, and we are subject to regular reviews by teams of international experts to ensure our data meets the highest standards. All of these steps promote trust in the statistics we produce.
Providing accurate and verifiable facts that are freely available to everyone is a cornerstone of living in an informed society.
In a crowded data world, we recognise the need to tell people how and why our data can be trusted, and how it is different from unregulated and unverified data sources. The steps we take also mean we can call the statistics we produce official statistics because of their legal standing, our high standards, and stringent regulation. They are the counterbalance to misinformation and alternative facts.
As the provider of official statistics, we must meet the highest international standards and we clearly state our methodologies and sources to produce verifiable facts you can trust. We will continue to build on the trust that has been placed in us.
The data we gather is never about you as individual, but about us as a society. We use collective information to tell the big picture story of living and working in Ireland. The insights we publish reflect life in Ireland and support evidence-informed decision making.
The aim of this Trust & Transparency section of our website is to outline why we collect data, how we do it, our legal remit, and the legal guarantees around data protection and confidentiality. It also tells you about our rigorous checking procedures and how we use international standards to create the highest quality statistics.
We recognise that we must be able to clearly demonstrate the steps we take to protect the confidentiality of the data shared with us, and the professional ethics around the necessity and proportionality of conducting a survey.
You have counted on us for 75 years and we have counted on you. Let’s continue to count on each other to provide independent insights for all.
CSO: Count on us. We count on you.
Explore our Trust & Transparency section to learn more about why we collect data, how we do it, our legal remit, and the legal guarantees around data protection and confidentiality. We also outline our rigorous checking procedures and how we use international standards to produce the highest quality statistics.
Protecting your confidentiality and privacy is at the heart of everything we do
We value transparency, telling people clearly what we do and how we do it
Our use of professional ethics as part of our processes and decision-making
We work to international standards and methods to promote trust in our statistics
Our support for the national data ecosystem across the civil and public service