Confidential Data of the Czech Statistical Office for Scientific Research
The Czech Statistical Office (CZSO) Access to these data is subject to a fee in accordance with the current CZSO price list for information services and products. An overview of available data sources from various statistical areas (e.g., tourism, population, innovation, patents, or advanced technologies), along with the price list, is available on the CZSO website in the section "Services of the CZSO for the public".
The provision and utilization of these data are governed by the applicable legal regulations of the Czech Republic and the European Union, in particular Act No. 89/1995 Coll., on the State Statistical Service, Act No. 110/2019 Coll., on the Processing of Personal Data, and Regulation (EC) No. 223/2009 on European statistics.
Confidential statistical data may be provided for scientific research only on the basis of a special contract with the CZSO. This contract sets out the conditions for data confidentiality protection and the manner of their use. Data are provided in a form that does not allow the direct identification of individual reporting units.
Researchers working with these data are required to take a confidentiality oath pursuant to Section 16, paragraphs 2 and 3 of the Act on the State Statistical Service. The obligation of confidentiality continues even after the research work with the data has ended.
How to Apply for Data Access
To obtain access to confidential statistical data, it is necessary to fill out the form „Preliminary request for access to confidential statistical data (CSD) for scientific research purposes". The application mainly includes:
- a brief description of the research project,
- specification of the requested data,
- expected results of the project,
- plan for the dissemination of results.
Based on the evaluation of the application, the CZSO decides on the method of data provision.
Methods of Data Access
Confidential statistical data can be made available to researchers in two ways:
1. Work in the CZSO SafeCenter
Researchers work with data directly in the secure environment of the CZSO SafeCenter in Prague. Outputs from the analyses are checked by a SafeCenter employee before being handed over to the researcher and are subsequently made available via a secure storage facility or another approved method.
2. Provision of a Dataset to a Research Institution
In justified cases, the dataset may be provided to a research institution via a secure storage facility. In such a case, the applicant must describe in the application how a secure environment for working with the data will be ensured.
Requirements for Secure Data Processing
When working with confidential statistical data, it is necessary to adhere to basic data protection principles, in particular:
- data must not be processed in commercial cloud services,
- processing in an institutional on-premise environment (software and hardware physically located in one place rather than in the cloud) managed by a university or research institution is preferred,
- access to data is restricted exclusively to researchers who have taken the confidentiality oath,
- when working on a local device, the minimum standards are disk encryption, an individual user account, active anti-malware protection, a properly configured firewall, and the use of currently supported software,
- data must be stored only in folders that are not synchronized with cloud storage services.
