2011 Census: Data Quality and Confidentiality Standards and Guidelines (Public)
Introduction

Data disseminated by the census are subjected to a variety of automated and manual processes to determine whether the data needs to be suppressed. This is done primarily for two reasons: (1) to ensure non-disclosure of individual respondent identity and characteristics (which will subsequently be referred to as confidentiality) and (2) to limit the dissemination of data of unacceptable quality (which will subsequently be referred to as data quality).

Additionally, suppression of data may be applied for product specific reasons due, typically, to formatting issues. The term product refers, primarily, to tabular output. Data may be either modified in the product or removed from the product altogether to reflect the suppression rules required. This document summarizes the data quality and confidentiality standards and guidelines to be applied for the 2011 Census Dissemination Project.

The following new or updated rules have been adopted for 2011:

• Adjustment of population and dwelling counts at the federal electoral district level (see Confidentiality adjustment for population and dwelling counts)
• Update to the rule for disseminating population aged 100 and older data (see Data quality rule for disseminating data for population aged 100 and over)
• Adopting Statistics Canada standard table symbols in 2011 Census products (see Data quality and confidentiality table symbols).