ZamStats rubbishes confidential data leakage report

THE purported leakage of personal information by The Zambia Statistics Agency (ZamStats) is false and must be dismissed with the contempt it deserves, Interim Statician General Mulenga Musepa has said.

Mr Musepa said he was dismayed with the allegations purporting that the Agency had leaked confidential information of individuals on its official website.

Mr Musepa has appealed to the public to ignore any form of information posted through a named social media news outlet that confidential information of names, dates of birth, bank accounts and results of aptitude tests conducted during the recruitment process of Map Data Collectors 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,"Mr Musepa said.

He said 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.

Mr Musepa said ZamStats places the highest priority on maintaining the confidentiality of individual questionnaires. He said stringent instructions and procedures have been implemented to ensure that confidentiality is maintained at all times.

"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," he said.

He said data releases are screened so that anonymity is assured. 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 our platforms. Mr Musepa said the oath of secrecy remains in effect for life, even after their term of employment.

He said employees are subject to fines and/or imprisonment should they reveal identifiable information derived from the census or any other statistical information without authorisation.

Mr Musepa said the Statistics Act No. 13 of 2018 is very clear on any breach of the confidentiality and clearly spells penalties.

He said 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.

Mr Musepa said confidentiality of personal and corporate data, collected during performance of duties is a legal requirement at Zamstats.