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Indigenous Data Sovereignty is the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to govern data about their peoples, lands, and ways of life. It treats data as a cultural and political asset, not a plain by-product of public work.
In Australia, this idea is set out by Maiam nayri Wingara, the Indigenous Data Sovereignty Collective. Across the world, the Global Indigenous Data Alliance (GIDA) sets out the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance. The four CARE pillars are Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics. CARE sits next to the FAIR data rules. FAIR asks if data is well kept. CARE asks who it is for, and on whose terms.
For a council planner using Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data, the asks are short. Be honest about what the data can and cannot say. Defer to the local Traditional Owner group or land council on what the numbers should mean for local work. Census Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander counts carry well-known data quirks (undercount, change of identity, and "Not stated" answers) that the First Nations page lays out.
Place Forecast shows raw ABS Census counts for First Nations cells. It does not back-fill values that the ABS has masked through random shifts at small scale. It shows "Not stated" as its own row, so users can see how full the answers were. And it flags the design choices that affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander counts, so users can weigh them.