Modern information technologies, particularly the technology of very large data bases,
Internet and modern mass media, have changed the processes of production,
storage and dissemination of information. These technologies have a direct impact on the
practical realization of citizens' rights to information. In democratic societies, in modern IT
environment, information is produced and disseminated by many social and economic
entities. Many producers and disseminators of information do not know or do not obey the
criteria which should be met by any information delivered to the public. In this paper the
advantages and the threats for the citizens' rights to information generated by the
distribution and globalization of information processes in modern IT environment are discussed.
It seems that for the protection of the citizens' rights to information, there is the need
for specification and codification of quality criteria and standards for information produced
and disseminated with the use of modern IT. Official statistics may and should play an
important and active role in defining those criteria and standards. Professional ethics of
statisticians and of official statistics seems to be the proper basis for that. Ethical principles of
statistics are formulated in two basic documents: The fundamental principles of official
statistics adopted by the UN Statistical Commission in 1994 and the ISI Declaration on
statistical ethics adopted by the ISI in 1985.