Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/1223 of 27 July 2021 specifying the technical items of the data set, establishing the technical formats for transmission of information and specifying the detailed arrangements and content of the quality reports on the organisation of a sample survey in the use of information and communication technologies domain for reference year 2022 pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Text with EEA relevance)

This Regulation specifies the technical items of the data set, establishes the technical formats for the transmission of information from Member States to the Commission (Eurostat) and specifies the detailed arrangements for transmission and content of the quality reports in the use of information and communication technologies domain.

For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions shall apply: (1) ‘fieldwork period’ means the period of time during which the data collection from respondents is conducted; (2) ‘reference period’ means the period of time to which a particular item of information relates.

The technical characteristics of variables shall be those laid down in the Annex and refer to: (a) variable identifier; (b) variable name and description; (c) codes and labels; (d) filter; (e) variable type.

1 The target populations in the use of information and communication technologies domain shall be private households in the territory of the Member State and individuals who have their usual residence, as defined in Article 2(11) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1700, in the territory of the Member State.

2 For the variables that concern the households listed in the Annex, information shall be collected for private households with at least one member aged 16 to 74 residing in the territory of the Member State.

3 For the variables that concern the individuals listed in the Annex, information shall be collected for individuals aged 16 to 74 residing in the territory of the Member State.

4 Information may be provided on optional basis for individuals aged under 16 or over 74.

5 The data collection for the use of information and communication technologies domain shall be carried out for a sample of private households or a sample of persons belonging to private households as observation units.

1 The reference period for collecting statistics on the detailed topic ‘interaction with public authorities’ shall comprise the three last quarters of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022.

2 The reference period for collecting statistics on the detailed topics ‘Connection to the internet from anywhere’ and ‘Effect of use’ shall be the last time the activity was performed by the respondent.

3 For all other detailed topics, under the topic ‘information society participation’, the reference period shall be the first quarter of 2022.

4 The reference date shall be defined as the time of the first interview (DD/MM/YYYY).

For data directly provided by respondents, the fieldwork period shall be the second quarter of 2022.

1 Imputation, modelling or weighting shall be applied to the data where information is missing, invalid or inconsistent.

2 The procedure applied to the data shall preserve the variation and the correlation between variables. Methods that incorporate ‘error components’ into the imputed values shall be preferable to those that simply impute a predicted value.

3 Methods which take into account the structure or other characteristics of the joint distribution of the variables shall be preferable to the marginal or univariate approach.

1 Member States shall transmit the final data to the Commission (Eurostat) by 5 October 2022. The data shall be transmitted in the form of microdata files, including appropriate weights. The data must have been fully checked and validated, using the statistical data and metadata exchange standard through the single entry point to allow the Commission (Eurostat) to retrieve the data by electronic means. That data shall comply with the validation rules in accordance with the specification of variables based on the coding and filters as described in the Annex.

2 Member States shall provide the metadata to the Commission (Eurostat) in the standard metadata structure defined by the Commission (Eurostat) within 3 months of the deadline for transmitting the microdata. The metadata shall be provided through the single entry point to allow the Commission (Eurostat) to retrieve the data by electronic means.

1 Member States shall transmit to the Commission (Eurostat) an annual quality report on the use of information and communication technologies domain.

2 The annual quality report shall contain quality-related data and metadata, information on the accuracy and reliability of the survey and describe changes in basic concepts and definitions that affect the comparability over time and across countries. The quality report shall also include information on the compliance with the model questionnaire and on changes in questionnaire design that affect the comparability over time and across countries.

3 The annual quality report shall be transmitted to the Commission (Eurostat) within 3 months of the deadline for transmitting the microdata.

4 The annual quality report shall be transmitted in accordance with the technical standards established by the Commission (Eurostat).

5 The annual quality report shall be provided through the single entry point to allow the Commission (Eurostat) to retrieve the data by electronic means.

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.