Guidance

Statistics confidentiality policy

Published 27 August 2026

Introduction

Protecting the confidentiality of individual and business information is a priority for statistics producers at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

This policy sets out our approach to confidentiality in the production and publication of official statistics. It should be used in conjunction with our Data management policy and individual privacy notices.

MHCLG’s Personal Information Charter contains more information about individuals’ rights in relation to personal data, how to complain and how to contact the Data Protection Officer.

All MHCLG privacy notices are published on the MHCLG privacy notices page, or alongside data collection pages.

Types of confidential data

The data we collect for statistical purposes includes a very limited amount of sensitive data. However, some of our datasets could potentially be used to identify individuals or households.

In addition to data on individuals, we collect data from local authorities and fire and rescue authorities. We also use administrative data, for example on social housing, fire and rescue incidents and homelessness which can include personal information.

Confidentiality principles

To ensure confidentiality, we:

• keep confidential information secure and restrict access to trained staff who understand their responsibilities under data protection laws (see our Data management policy)
• set out confidentiality undertakings to data providers
• balance privacy protections with the need to produce useful statistics; this includes applying disclosure control to statistics where needed to prevent identification of individuals, or the release of confidential information
• share confidential statistical data with other organisations for specific purposes and with appropriate record keeping and governance

Disclosure control

Individual and household data

We apply statistical disclosure control techniques where there is a reasonable risk of personal information being identified by a motivated intruder. These vary depending on the context, including the level of geographic disaggregation, which affects the risk of disclosure.

• for results based on sample surveys, such as the English Housing Survey (EHS), we suppress results based on small numbers for quality reasons. This also mitigates the risk of disclosure; when making more detailed EHS data available for public use, we also use a series of disclosure control processes to avoid individual records being identifiable – more details can be found in the EHS technical report
• for statistics which are derived from record-level information, such as fire and rescue incidents or social housing, suppression, rounding or grouping is applied to geographically disaggregated data and more potentially sensitive variables, to minimise the risk of a household or individual being identified

Data sharing

Data will only be shared beyond the immediate team processing the data where:

• the necessary data handling conditions and security requirements are met
• the agreement under which data was collected allows this
• there is appropriate data governance and data sharing agreements in place
• there is a lawful basis for sharing personal data
• there is a legal gateway for sharing personal data

We deposit data into the UK Data Service and other Trusted Research Environments through appropriate data governance and data processing agreements. Specific projects by accredited researchers in these environments are approved on a case-by-case basis.