By Bennie Mundando
WE are dismayed with the allegations purporting that we have leaked confidential information of individuals on its official website, Zambia Statistics Agency (ZamStats) interim Statistician General Mulenga Musepa has said.
A day ago, a named online site claimed that confidential information consisting of names, dates of birth, bank accounts and results of aptitude tests conducted during the recruitment process of Map Data Collectors has been leaked.
But in a statement made available to The Scoop this afternoon, Mr. Musepa says ZamStats, which is under the Ministry of National Development Planning, has not posted any confidential information to the public.
He has appealed to the public to ignore any form of information asserting that confidential information of names, dates of birth, bank accounts and results of aptitude tests conducted during the recruitment process of Map Data Collectors and treat it as false information.
“Members of the public are therefore being cautioned not to succumb to unverified reports which may be circulating on social media platforms. The Zambia Statistics Agency takes great care to ensure that information collected from the census is clearly in the public interest and cannot be disclosed to any other person or media.
“ZamStats places the highest priority on maintaining the confidentiality of individual questionnaires. Stringent instructions and procedures have been implemented to ensure that confidentiality is maintained at all times. For instance, census data are processed and stored on a highly restricted internal network and cannot be accessed by anyone who has not taken the oath of secrecy,” Mr. Musepa said.
He says data releases are screened so that anonymity is assured while names, addresses, telephone numbers and any other personal or corporate data are not part of any statistical database disseminated to the public on any of the ZamStats platforms.
He says only a limited number of qualified ZamStats employees have access to personal and confidential information with authorisation from the office of the Statistician General and have taken an oath of secrecy.
He says the oath of secrecy remains in effect for life, even after their term of employment and that employees are subject to fines and or imprisonment should they reveal identifiable information derived from the census or any other statistical information without authorisation.
“The Statistics Act No. 13 of 2018 is very clear on any breach of the confidentiality and clearly spells penalties. Section 31 (1) (b) of the Act stipulates that a person commits an offence if that person without lawful authority, publishes or communicates to any person, other than in the ordinary course of that person’s engagement, any information acquired in the course of the engagement.
“Further, section 31 (2) of the Act stipulates that a person convicted of an offence under subsection (1) is liable to a fine not exceeding fifty thousand penalty units (which amounts to K15, 000) or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or to both,” he said.
