Privacy impact assessment (PIA) for using the Household Income and Living Survey to collect and produce information on child poverty, household income, housing costs, material wellbeing, expenditure, and net worth.
Download the document below, or read the recommendations and summary online.
Recommendations from Stats NZ's privacy team
We recommend that:
- Privacy impact assessment to be completed for Blaise (PIA will need to be completed by product/business owner for Blaise as this is used across multiple surveys). [In progress]
- Document a process for access requests, including timeframes for accessing data. [Completed]
- Document disposal process.
Summary
In July 2024, Stats NZ launched the Household Income and Living Survey (HILS).
This follows the Government Statistician's decision to change the way that child poverty statistics are delivered. Instead of the Living in Aotearoa survey (first implemented in 2022), Stats NZ will deliver data on child poverty measures - as well as household incomes, housing costs and material wellbeing statistics - through the HILS survey.
For more information on Stats NZ's commitment, see Stats NZ remains committed to delivering quality child poverty statistics and About the Household Income and Living Survey.
This Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) focuses on the HILS and its process for collecting and producing information on child poverty, household income, housing costs, material wellbeing, expenditure, and net worth.
The Child Poverty Reduction Act 2018 ('the Act') was introduced in 2018 to achieve a significant and sustained reduction in child poverty in New Zealand. The Act mandates Stats NZ to report on 10 measures of child poverty, including a measure for persistent child poverty .
Since the Act's introduction, 9 of these 10 measures (excluding persistent poverty) were derived from the annual Household Economic Survey (HES). The purpose of the HES was to produce annual data on household income, housing costs, and material wellbeing, along with detailed household expenditure and net worth data, which enabled Stats NZ to report on child poverty as mandated by the Act. The HES has been instrumental in providing these key statistics and supporting the reporting requirements of the Act. For more information on HES, see Changes to the Household Economic Survey 2018/19.
HILS incorporates income, industry, and demographic data from administrative sources, in the same way as HES did . A PIA to accompany this one for HILS may be necessary in the future once the hybrid survey and administrative data method for measuring persistent child poverty is fully operationalised.
ISBN 978-1-991307-22-4
