Delivering data from the UK Censuses 2021/22 - challenges faced: data on the LGBTQ+ population and privacy

The UK Data Service (UKDS) is the flagship project in UK research infrastructure. It is a collaboration between the universities of Essex, Manchester, Southampton, UCL, Edinburgh and Jisc, and it provides a wide range of social sciences, humanities, and economic research data. Part of the data offered by UKDS is census data. The Office for National Statistics has partnered with UKDS to disseminate 2011 and 2021 census data, trusting it with securing access to safeguarded tables.

The 2021 census has been unique because it took place amid the Covid-19 pandemic, which is expected to have affected the given responses. For these reasons, Scotland decided to delay its census by one year to 2022, which has made harmonising census data across the UK almost impossible. This paper will discuss the challenges and peculiarities of the 2021 census in the UK and will demonstrate how UKDS handles data management and access to census data. The paper will discuss some of the privacy measures adopted, especially in relation to population groups with relatively few people. In particular, it will present findings on gender identity and sexual orientation, which were asked in UK Censuses for the first time in 2021, and look at both observed patterns and possible interactions with disclosure control.

Lastly, the UKDS is currently developing new tools to modernise its census delivery services. The presenter will take the opportunity offered by IASSIST conference to demonstrate some of these applications to the public for the first time.