Confidentiality

(1) Individual data on personal and material circumstances given for a federal statistic must be kept confidential by the officials and persons specially committed for the public service who are entrusted with conducting federal statistics, unless a special statutory provision provides otherwise. The duty of confidentiality continues to apply after their activity has ended. The duty of confidentiality does not apply to 1. individual data whose transmission or publication the data subjects have consented to in writing, unless, owing to particular circumstances, another form of consent is appropriate, 2. individual data from generally accessible sources, where they relate to the public bodies referred to in section 15(1), including where an obligation to provide information exists under a statutory provision ordering a federal statistic, 3. individual data that have been aggregated by the Federal Statistical Office or the statistical offices of the Länder with the individual data of other respondents and are presented in statistical results, 4. individual data where they cannot be attributed to the respondents or data subjects. Sections 93, 97, 105(1), section 111(5) in conjunction with section 105(1), and section 116(1) of the Fiscal Code of 16 March 1976 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 613; 1977 I p. 269), as last amended by Article 1 of the Act of 19 December 1985 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 2436), do not apply to persons and bodies insofar as they are entrusted with conducting federal, Land or municipal statistics.
(2) The transmission of individual data between the persons and bodies entrusted with conducting a federal statistic is permissible insofar as necessary for producing the federal statistic. In addition, the transmission of individual data between the statistical offices participating in cooperation under section 3a, and the central processing and use of that individual data in one or more statistical offices, is permissible.
(3) The Federal Statistical Office may transmit to the statistical offices of the Länder the individual data relating to their respective survey area, for special processing at regional level. For producing national accounts and other comprehensive systems of the Federation and the Länder, the Federal Statistical Office and the statistical offices of the Länder may transmit individual data from federal statistics to one another.
(4) For use vis-à-vis the legislative bodies and for planning purposes — but not for regulating individual cases — the Federal Statistical Office and the statistical offices of the Länder may transmit tables of statistical results to the supreme federal or Land authorities, even where table fields show only a single case. Transmission under sentence 1 is permissible only insofar as the statutory provisions ordering a federal statistic permit the transmission of individual data to supreme federal or Land authorities.
(5) For exclusively statistical purposes, the Federal Statistical Office and the statistical offices of the Länder may transmit individual data to the bodies of municipalities and associations of municipalities responsible for carrying out statistical functions, where the transmission is provided for in a statute ordering a federal statistic and the nature and scope of the individual data to be transmitted are specified. Transmission is permissible only where a Land statute ensures the separation of these bodies from other municipal administrative bodies and statistical confidentiality is guaranteed through organisation and procedure.
(6) For carrying out scientific projects, the Federal Statistical Office and the statistical offices of the Länder may, for institutions of higher education or other bodies with the function of independent scientific research, 1. transmit individual data where the individual data can be attributed only with a disproportionately large expenditure of time, cost and labour (de facto anonymised individual data), 2. grant access, within specially safeguarded areas of the Federal Statistical Office and the statistical offices of the Länder, to formally anonymised individual data, where effective precautions are taken to maintain confidentiality. Authorised persons may only be officials, persons specially committed for the public service, or persons committed under subsection (7).
(7) Persons who are to receive individual data under subsection (6) must, before transmission, be committed to confidentiality, unless they are officials or persons specially committed for the public service. Section 1(2), (3) and (4) number 2 of the Commitment Act of 2 March 1974 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 469, Article 42), as amended by the Act of 15 August 1974 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 1942), applies accordingly.
(8) Individual data transmitted on the basis of a special statutory provision or of subsections (4), (5) or (6) may be used only for the purposes for which they were transmitted. In the cases under subsection (6) sentence 1 number 1, they must be deleted once the scientific project has been carried out. At the bodies to which individual data are transmitted, organisational and technical measures must ensure that only officials, persons specially committed for the public service, or persons committed under subsection (7) sentence 1, are recipients of individual data.
(9) Transmission on the basis of a special statutory provision or under subsections (4), (5) or (6) must be recorded by the statistical offices as to content, the body to which it is transmitted, the date, and the purpose of the transmission. The records must be kept for at least five years.
(10) The duty of confidentiality under subsection (1) also applies to persons who are recipients of individual data under a special statutory provision, under subsections (5) or (6), or of tables under subsection (4). This does not apply to facts that are publicly known, in the case of a transmission under subsection (4).