Data content standardisation aims to enable the sharing of data more efficiently and effectively across the New Zealand government, within existing privacy and security settings.
Data content requirements establish a consistent way for collecting, formatting, recording, and/or storing information across government. The purpose of the requirement may vary depending on what the requirement covers.
For example, there are many ways of collecting date of birth but the various ways it is formatted causes confusion for government organisations sharing this data. The data content standard for date of birth defines date of birth and focuses on the format for organisation sharing but does not cover collection.
The way that person names are collected is important to the way it can be shared. If names are collected as free text it is difficult to break into ‘given name’ and ‘family name’. As with date of birth, this data content standard focuses on the format for sharing, but will also have implications for the way names are collected.
Where possible, data content requirements reference existing standards, including a range of international, local, and statistical standards. The data content requirements may also include links to other helpful guidelines.
Register of government data content requirements
If you would like to know more, please email datacontentstandards@stats.govt.nz.
Last updated 30 April 2020