Verified facts for people in the 21st century: How can professional ethics contribute?

Ethics play an important role in the practice of all professions. The best known of all is probably the Hippocratic oath in medicine. But what if a doctor relies on data and statistics to diagnose and treat his patients? If his work involves collecting, analysing, interpreting and drawing conclusions from data, the doctor becomes a statistical practitioner and is expected to follow the values and principles that apply to this profession. Professional ethics for statistics is application-oriented and committed to the goal of guiding statistical practitioners to act responsibly and to ensure the trustworthiness of statisticians and thus also of the statistics they produce. Alongside integrity and professionalism, the third value of professional statistics is respect, both in dealing with confidential data and with the impact of statistics on the communities affected. Respect, professionalism and integrity are the three components of the ‘statistical oath’. However, there is a long way to go from theory to practice. In this article, we will explore different paths we can take towards improving the knowledge and application of these professional ethics in areas of applications and forms of statistical practice. We will focus on one specific area, official statistics.