Ethics Council

The Swiss Ethics Council for Official Statistics (Ethics Council) was established in 2003 by the Swiss Conference of Regional Statistical Offices (CORSTAT) and the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). It is responsible for dealing with issues relating to professional and data ethics. The Ethics Council is an autonomous and independent body, institutionally anchored in the Official Statistics Section of the Swiss Statistical Society. In particular, the Ethics Council contributes to public relations work relating to the Charter, supports its implementation, and monitors compliance with it. Regarding the application of the Charter's principles, the Ethics Council has powers of determination, recommendation and information. It cannot impose sanctions. The Ethics Council also sees its role as an ombudsman for official statistics.

The broader public can primarily access the Ethics Council via its website. As well as providing general information and presenting the Charter in several languages, the website enables users to contact the Ethics Council. The Ethics Council is also present on the swissdatacommUNITY Confluence platform. In addition to the website, the platform provides more detailed information, such as the Ethics Council's recommendations, mandate, regulations, annual reports, and all previous versions. This meeting place for data communities also offers opportunities for direct exchange and networking within a dedicated area.

Charter

In 2002, the Swiss Conference of Regional Statistical Offices (CORSTAT) and the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) adopted the Charter of Swiss Official Statistics as a code of practice. Following amendments in 2008 and 2012, a comprehensive revision was carried out in 2025. The professional ethical requirements that govern the institutional environment, statistical processes, and statistical products are summarised in the form of principles and supplemented with indicators. Complementing the various legal bases of the Confederation and the cantons, the Charter contributes as a cornerstone of a common quality framework to the credibility of official statistics.

Alongside the UN's Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and the European Statistical System's Code of Practice (CoP), the revised Charter considers the particular features of Switzerland's federal statistical system. Having been adjusted to remove EU-specific features and supplemented with characteristics of the federal system and terminology from previous versions of the Charter, it is now in line with the CoP. This allows for comparisons and synchronous work with the CoP wherever possible. This is particularly beneficial to those federal statistical offices that are bound by the CoP under the statistics agreement with the EU.