(1)

The statistics officer or any person or agencies authorised under this Act shall, for statistical purposes, use any information furnished under section 6 in such manner as may be prescribed.

(2)

No person other than a person engaged in the work of collection of statistics under this Act or preparation of statistics resultant to such collection shall be permitted to see any information schedule or any answer to a question asked, except for the purposes of a prosecution under this Act.

(3)

No information contained in any information schedule and no answer to any question asked shall, except for the purposes of a prosecution under this Act, be separately published, or disclosed without suppressing the identification of informants to any agency.

(4)

All statistical information published by any agency shall be arranged in such a manner so as to prevent any particulars becoming identifiable by any person (other than the informant by whom those particulars were supplied) as the particulars relating to the informant who supplied it, even through the process of elimination, unless–

(a) that informant has consented to their publication in that manner; or

(b) their publication in that manner could not reasonably have been foreseen by the concerned agency or any employee thereof.

(5)

For the purposes of sub-section (4), the Central Government may make such rules or make such arrangement, as it may consider necessary.