Abstract

Denmark and other Nordic countries have a long tradition of using administrative sources for producing official statistics. There are central registers for the population, for the businesses and for building and dwellings. These can all be linked with each other and they can be used for cross cutting statistics and also as a basis for exploring new data sources to include in the production of official statistics. This paper will provide a description of how the Danish statistical system relies on administrative sources and how this is also a base for exploring new data sources, like scanner data from grocery store chains, AIS – position data for ships and Smart meter data on electricity. The paper will also give examples on the activities during the COVID19-pandemic where faster and more frequent statistics on deaths, corona cases, unemployment, trade in goods etc. where produced using existing data in new ways and exploring new data sources. Much of the exploring of new data sources is done in the statistics producing units, but Statistics Denmark has established a Data science lab that does exploring and testing new sources – new techniques – and passing on relevant sources and techniques to the statistics producing units. The paper will also discuss the quality assurance framework of Statistics Denmark and how the new data eco-system can be handled within it.