Article 1 
1. The purpose of this Regulation is: (a) to authorise national authorities to transmit confidential statistical data to the Statistical Office of the European Communities (hereinafter referred to as Eurostat); (b) to provide a guarantee that the Commission will take all necessary measures to ensure the confidentiality of data thus transmitted. 2. This Regulation shall apply to statistical confidentiality only. It shall not affect special, Community or national provisions safeguarding confidentiality other than statistical confidentiality.
Article 2 
For the purposes of this Regulation, the terms given below are defined as follows: (a) confidential statistical data: data defined in Article 13 of Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 of 17 February 1997 on Community statistics ( 6 ) ; (b) national authorities: national statistical institutes and other national bodies responsible for the collection and use of statistics for the Communities; (c) information on the private lives of natural persons: information on the private and family lives of natural persons as defined by national legislation or practices in the various Member States; (d) use for statistical purposes: use exclusively for the compilation of statistical tables or for statistical economic analyses; may not be used for administrative, legal or tax purposes or for verification against the units surveyed; (e) statistical unit: basic unit covered by statistical data transmitted to Eurostat; (f) direct identification: identification of a statistical unit from its name or address, or from an officially allocated and published identification number; (g) indirect identification: possibility of deducing the identity of a statistical unit other than from the information mentioned in point (f); (h) officials of Eurostat: officials of the Communities, within the meaning of Article 1 of the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Communities, working at Eurostat; (i) other staff of Eurostat: servants of the Communities, within the meaning of Articles 2 to 5 of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities, working at Eurostat; (j) dissemination: supply of data in any form whatever: publications, access to databases, microfiches, telephone communications, etc.
Article 3 
1. The national authorities shall be authorised to transmit confidential statistical data to Eurostat. 2. National rules on statistical confidentiality may not be invoked to prevent the transmission of confidential statistical data to Eurostat where an act of Community law governing a Community statistic provides for the transmission of such data. 3. Transmission to Eurostat of confidential statistical data, within the meaning of paragraph 2, shall be carried out in such a way that statistical units cannot be directly identified. This does not preclude the admissibility of more far-reaching transmission rules in accordance with the legislation of the Member States. 4. National authorities shall not be obliged to transmit information on the private lives of natural persons to Eurostat if the information transmitted could enable those persons to be identified either directly or indirectly.
Article 4 
1. The Commission shall take all the necessary regulatory, administrative, technical and organisational measures to ensure the confidentiality of statistical data transmitted by the competent departments of Member States to Eurostat in accordance with Article 3. 2. The Commission shall establish the procedures for transmitting confidential statistical data to Eurostat and the principles for protection of such data in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 7(2).
Article 5 
1. The Commission shall instruct the Director-General of Eurostat to ensure the protection of data transmitted to Eurostat by the national authorities of the Member States. It shall establish the arrangements for the internal organisation of Eurostat in order to ensure such protection, after consulting the Committee referred to in Article 7(1). 2. Confidential statistical data transmitted to Eurostat shall be accessible only to officials of Eurostat and may be used by them exclusively for statistical purposes. 3. However, the Commission may grant access to confidential statistical data to other staff of Eurostat and other natural persons working on the premises of Eurostat under contract, in special cases and exclusively for statistical purposes. The procedures for such access shall be determined by the Commission in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 7(2). 4. Confidential statistical data in Eurostat's possession may be disseminated only when combined with other data in a form which ensures that statistical units cannot be identified either directly or indirectly. 5. Officials and other staff of Eurostat and other natural persons working on the premises of Eurostat under contract may not use or distribute these data for purposes other than those laid down in this Regulation. This prohibition shall continue to apply following transfer, termination of service or retirement. 6. The protection measures referred to in paragraphs 1 to 5 shall apply to: (a) all confidential statistical data the transmission of which to Eurostat is covered by an act of Community law governing a Community statistic; (b) all confidential statistical data transmitted voluntarily by Member States to Eurostat.
Article 6 
Member States shall, before 1 January 1992, take appropriate measures to curb any violations of the obligation to maintain the secrecy of confidential statistical data transmitted in accordance with Article 3. These measures shall concern at least violations committed in the territory of the Member State concerned, by officials or other staff of Eurostat and by the other natural persons working under contract on the premises of Eurostat. Member States shall inform the Commission without delay of the measures taken. The Commission shall pass on this information to the other Member States.
Article 7 
1. The Commission shall be assisted by a Committee on Statistical Confidentiality, hereinafter referred to as ‘the Committee’. 2. Where reference is made to this paragraph, Articles 4 and 7 of Decision 1999/468/EC shall apply, having regard to the provisions of Article 8 thereof. The period laid down in Article 4(3) of Decision 1999/468/EC shall be set at three months.
Article 8 
The Committee shall examine questions raised by its chairman, either on his own initiative or at the request of the representative of a Member State, relating to the implementation of this Regulation.
Article 9 
Regulation (Euratom, EEC) No 1588/90, as amended by the regulations set out in Annex I, is repealed. References to the repealed Regulation shall be construed as references to this Regulation and shall be read in accordance with the correlation table in Annex II.
Article 10 
This Regulation shall enter into force on the 20th day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union .