Agricultural census - FSS 2010 - Legal background

Legal background

The regulatory framework of the Agricultural Census 2010 is provided by the Act XXIV of 2010 approved by the Parliament.

According to the act Agricultural Census 2010 should be carried out with the reference date of 1st June 2010 in the territory of Hungary in line with the Regulation 1166/2008/EC. The survey has to cover all units involved in agricultural production over a certain threshold. The list of the main group of the characteristics to be observed is included in the act.

The Hungarian Central Statistical Office is responsible for the implementation of the census. In order to increase coverage HCSO is authorized for using administrative data sources listed in the act and has legal possibility to access them.

Act XLVI of 1993 on Statistics provides the general regulatory framework of surveys implemented in Hungary. All statistical surveys are included in the NPSDC approved annually by a Government Decree. In 2010, regarding agricultural enterprises and private holdings the annual surveys of land use and sown area and livestock (NPSDC 1082, 1087 and NPSDC 1651, 1089) were corporated into FSS 2010, consequently they were not part of NPSDC.

The respondents are liable to provide adequate data; in case of refusal legal action are to be entailed. Under the Criminal Law enumerators are considered and are entitled to be protected as official person. The HCSO had issued registered identification badges valid only for the duration of the census together with the ID card. This identification tool was provided to each person involved in the implementation of FSS 2010.

In virtue of the Act LXIII of 1992 on protection of personal data and on publicity of the data with generally interest all individual data are qualified as confidential and were treated as such. Survey data were validated and checked exclusively by the staff of HCSO and each enumerator was responsible for preventing unauthorized access to the questionnaires filled-in.