Australian Census Stirs Up Storm of Privacy Concerns (buzzfeed.com) 129
An anonymous reader writes: Next week over 20 million Australians will take part in a mandatory government census. While such data-gathering exercises are usually uncontroversial, some significant changes to the process of collecting the 2016 data -- and in particular the way in which personally-identifying information will be retained for long periods (possibly indefinintely) -- have left many privacy advocates and others calling for a mass boycott. The Australian government's response has been to try to calm fears by promising that it will secure the census data, keep personally identifying data separate from statistical data, and only use each in a responsible way. It has, at the same time reminded Australian citizens that the fines for non-participation in the census have recently been radically increased (now $1800 for failure to submit a form; or $180/day for late submissions).Further reading: Australians threaten to take leave of their census.
How much is the fine for false information? (Score:2)
$1800 fine for not submitting a paper? I wonder how many people born on January 1st live at 123 Example St?
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You never know, maybe there really are 23 million Jon and Jane Does down under.
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"The ABS will certainly try to force compliance—fines range from AUS$1800 (~£1,000 or ~$1,370) for providing false information to AUS$180 per day for failing to submit the form. But the agency will have no real way to verify the answers provided by those who do complete the form as accurate. Failure to vote in the Federal Election last month resulted in only a AUS$20 fine."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po... [arstechnica.com]
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by writing yourself in.
There's no equivalent of that US tradition in most of the world. In Australia, writing your name on the ballot paper will, with near 100% certainty, make it an informal vote regardless of any other marks in the boxes. If that is your intent then simply placing the unmarked ballot paper in the box has the same effect and requires less effort.
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In Australia, writing your name on the ballot paper will, with near 100% certainty, make it an informal vote regardless of any other marks in the boxes.
Not this year. I'm guessing they regret this decision.
https://twitter.com/ahcayley/s... [twitter.com]
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The classic dick-n-balls sketch is not generally a unique identifier that on its own would invalidate the ballot paper: counting such ballots is not new. If you put anything on the ballot paper that can uniquely identify the voter then the vote is informal. A high proportion of voters would be the only person with that name that voted at a particular station. Initial counting will treat ballots containing names as invalid until the race turns out to be tight and the votes might make the difference. A ha
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mandatory voting is OK as long as long as the following options are available:
1. None of the above you are all bunch of self serving morons.
2. How the hell should I know? I haven't got enough information to make an informed decision, so you want me to vote to introduce random noise in the vote to distill the vote of people who actually care. Go major parties.
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It is my understanding in AUS that turning a blank ballot counts as voting as far as the mandatory voting law is concerned.
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Correct.
You can put anything on the ballot paper you like. The requirement is that you attend a polling station and have your name recorded as having receiving the ballot papers. You don't even have to do this on election day. There are a number of pre-poll options and absent voting provisions. They make it so easy that it isn't a drama.
Election days are more like a giant picnic barbeque these days anyway. There's more live broadcasting of what food is available at the polling stations than political c
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Yep.
You have to turn up, get your name crossed off, and both receive and hand in the papers. What you do with those papers is totally up to you....
In theory, you can:
Leave them blank, and hand them in.
Write your own selection on.
Doodle all over the forms
Write a slogan on the form.
or vote formally, it is up to you.
The only things that are illegal are not turning up, voting multiple times, and encouraging people to vote informally (hence I am not advocating any of the other options).
The government has an obli
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I know you can put anything you like on a ballot, I want those options printed on the form so everyone knows that they are options, and have meaning, not just invalid vote throw it in away. At the very least it would be interesting to see what the percentage was.
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Compulsory voting attendance is a good thing. It means political campaigns are aimed at the centre, the swinging voter.
In some other countries, the politics becomes extreme, with candidates aiming to demonise the opposition, and scare their support base into voting. We do not want that.
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Here is a question what if you submit a mainly blank census? you have submitted it and it contains no false information.
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Here is a question what if you submit a mainly blank census? you have submitted it and it contains no false information.
I know nothing about the Australian census, but in America you are required to give your address and the number of people living there. All other information on the census form is not legally required, and although they may pressure you to provide it, you can refuse. Do not believe any promises that information will not be abused, because that has ALREADY HAPPENED: During WW2, the census bureau provided information that was used to round up citizens of Japanese ethnicity, and place them in internment cam
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The US government has not been prosecuting persons who don't return their census form.
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We don't have a bill of rights down here !
We have NO rights !!
My ancestry goes back to second fleet convict,
we are still treated as convicts.
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Keep your fingers inside the cage inmate!
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In Canada, not filling out the census has not only monetary penalties, but potential jail time. So if you're one of the unlucky 25% of households that got the "long form" census this year, you had to -- under threat of fines and jail time -- provide information like whether you have any "emotional, psychological or mental health conditions" (question 11e), the address you normally work at, how you get to work, what time you leave for work and how long it takes you to get to work (questions 42, 43, 44a and
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10 days (Score:3)
... (now $1800 for failure to submit a form; or $180/day for late submissions)....
So if a person is more than 10 days late in submitting the form, it is cheaper not to submit it at all?
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So if a person is more than 10 days late in submitting the form,...
No, no fine. You will get a friendly knock on the door, asking how many persons were home, or not counted elsewhere, on census night.
They will offer you a paper form, or replacement online access code, and leave a card with a help-line number.
If the person ignores multiple reminders and offers of help, they may receive a formal direction to submit. It rarely comes to that, and even more rarely to any sort of prosecution. It was around one in a 100,000 households last time.
Re:10 days (Score:5, Informative)
His skills seem fine. After all, "$180/day for late submissions" should tell anyone with decent reading comprehension that there must be a submission, because you can't have a late submission without having a submission. And in the case that there is no submission, a fee of $1800 apparently applies, just as he said.
Admittedly, it may not work that way in practice, which is what you seem to believe, but that's certainly the way that it's worded.
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Please sharpen your reading comprehension skills.
Perhaps you should heed your own advice.
They are asking for it (Score:3)
"Australian government's response has been to try to calm fears by promising that it will secure the census data"
Sounds like an open invitation to 'evil hackers' everywhere to 'come and get it', waving a red flag saying - we have the mother-load here for the taking!!
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Yep, there was a typo in the summary it should have read:
"Australian government's response has been to calm fears by promising that it will try to secure the census data"
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Thats a problem thats unique to the way the US has to work on larger data sets and its own much older internal public and private sector networking or standards.
The hardware is too old to upgrade to allow any encrypt, decrypt standards or can only accept a limited format that has to be in plain text as submitted down a network.
Dom
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And it will fail.
Look at the hacks on US infrastructure right now - they're even breaking into presidential correspondence. If they can't protect secure communications inside the government
That was a non-secure political-party mail server, not internal government communications (which would be secured by the NSA). I think you are confused.
In the case of census results, it is much easier. When a complete form is submitted online, it is instantly encrypted using a asymmetric cipher, and forwarded to multiple processing sites.
Batches of forms are transferred across an air-gap to an offline processing system, which holds the decryption key.
The vulnerability would be in partially completed forms
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More importantly, you should keep in mind that such data has a serious sampling bias - It selects for people 1) bored enough to fill it out, 2) not at all concerned with their privacy, and 3) who have never heard of Japanese-American internment camps.
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To be fair, a lot of people around here need medication [pxhst.co].
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If they hadn't had the census material, they would have just handled it by appealing to patriotic (or greedy) Californians to identify which of their neighbors were from the same country which had just launched a sneak attack on their own.
BTW, many German immigrants were also interned, which in practice meant most of the German Jews who had left Germany before it was too late got to visit the Great Plains at government expense, along with a lot of Bundists that were not determined to be harmless.
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The other thing I'd wonder about is what kinds of questions are they asking, and why do they need all that data? In the U.S., the census is only supposed to be for one purpose, enumeration of representatives in Congress, but they ask all sorts of nosy questions that have nothing to do with that.
^^ This. Why does name and address make this more 'useful' data? So they can figure out which street names tend to have the most people named 'John' living on them? How exactly could retaining and associating this particular data be used to determine anything that would actually be beneficial* to the poor slob compelled to give up their info?
Well, at least they're not pulling income information straight from the tax authority [census.gc.ca]...I particularly like the claim that Stats Canada does it "to reduce the burden
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The standard talking point coming out of the ABS is this scenario:
The Census form is the only reliable source of information on whether an individual identifies as being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. So, after the census, if the census name, DOB, and address records are matched against new death records a better picture of indigenous Australian life expectancy can be made. That information is useful when planning programs to improve indeigenous life expectancy.
Neither birth nor death records carry this indigenous origin information. However, it strikes me that this can be achieved a number of ways without keeping the actual name, DOB or address. Hashes of the components (normalised or perhaps several allowing for variant spelling) can just as easily be compared and the sensitive data is never retained.
There are currently legislated protections forbidding the use of this data for any other purp
Re:They are asking for it (Score:4, Funny)
Mother Lode. Refers to gold & silver mines, and that sort of thing.
On the other hand, you might have been referring to triplets, which could be described as a "mother load".....
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Well.. I guess to a data-miner that info would be gold, eh? ;)
Sounds a lot like the "ACS"... (Score:5, Interesting)
We got it a couple years back and I refused any information beyond what the regular census requires. I got a phone call where I explained I didn't trust them to secure my information. So far, I haven't been prosecuted for it, nor have I heard back from them. Came down to it, I'd be okay with being the test case.
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Ditto. The (US) government has the right to a count of people for apportionment of representation. They have fuck-all right to anything more than that, not my name, not my ethnicity, not my education level, not my phone number.
Now, I don't know how Australia sends these out, but in the US, the ACS gets sent to an address, not to a specific person. That would make it somewhat hard to actually fine some
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I didn't say it was forbidden, I said they have no right to it. They can ask - I (and many, many others) just won't answer.
Not at all, just make all adults liable, it's really easy.
Really? If it's that easy to identify all possible liable adults in a household... Then why do we need a formal census in the first place?
Re:Sounds a lot like the "ACS"... (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, why not? Why don't they have a right to your name, your age, or even your citizenship? Where is collecting this information forbidden?
The usual answer to that question is right here:
In the US, any powers that are not explicitly delegated to the government are forbidden by default. The correct question is, "Where is collecting this information allowed?"
The answer to that question [usconstitution.net] is in Article 1, Section 2:
As that section is talking about taking a headcount for the purposes of representation, the intention was probably just to count the population. The exercise of the power is left up to Congress, though, so the current census is most likely constitutional. If nothing else, it would probably be defended using one of the elastic clauses.
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The Australian government has the right to create any bogus law they want.
If you don't like the new law, just challenge it in the high court.
If you win, good on you, but generally they will just turn around and
remake the law with a clause it can't be challenged by the high court.
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It looks like you guys can amend your constitution. Why not throw in a Bill of Rights?
It's too late now. Those in power can see how much trouble the US Bill of Rights causes for the US government. Why would they willingly give power back to the people? We have had various rights legislated but that's essentially worthless since the government is free to override it with subsequent legislation, e.g., the "Northern Territory National Emergency Response" was explicitly exempt from our "Racial Discrimination Act".
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In my city, they even do census for cats and dogs with somebody actually knocking at your door only for that purpose. Next; goldfish census!
In the U.S., why isn't this obsolete by now? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:In the U.S., why isn't this obsolete by now? (Score:4, Informative)
You're aware that the census is legally mandated in the Constitution, right?
Re:In the U.S., why isn't this obsolete by now? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're aware that the census is legally mandated in the Constitution, right?
Of all the unjustified responses that will compel me to slap someone upside the head repeatedly, "Because we've always done it this way" comes out on top every time.
The most powerful single-word question in the known universe is Why, which my example exemplifies.
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You're aware that the census is legally mandated in the Constitution, right?
Of all the unjustified responses that will compel me to slap someone upside the head repeatedly, "Because we've always done it this way" comes out on top every time.
The most powerful single-word question in the known universe is Why, which my example exemplifies.
There's a world of difference between "we've always done it this way" and "is legally mandated in the Constitution".
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You're aware that the census is legally mandated in the Constitution, right?
Of all the unjustified responses that will compel me to slap someone upside the head repeatedly, "Because we've always done it this way" comes out on top every time.
The most powerful single-word question in the known universe is Why, which my example exemplifies.
There's a world of difference between "we've always done it this way" and "is legally mandated in the Constitution".
That "world" you speak of can now answer the same damn question; Why.
That question applies across your entire world is because we have these things called Constitutional Amendments, which came about because someone did ask that all-powerful question repeatedly until a logical answer or solution was presented instead of excuses or references to ancient texts. The world is ever-changing, which is the reason Constitutions have been amended as well.
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The glib answer to "why" is simply "because nobody has passed an amendment to remove the legal mandate from the Constitution"...
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And does the Constitution say the census must be conducted door-to-door salesmen style rather than by the plethora of other ways we have to know how many citizens live in which district?
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And does the Constitution say the census must be conducted door-to-door salesmen style rather than by the plethora of other ways we have to know how many citizens live in which district?
Sacre bleu! Why didn't those dolts at the Census Bureau think of this!
Oh, wait, they did: The 2020 Census Operational Plan [census.gov] includes a goal of "Knock on doors only when necessary".
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Fun fact: the US government doesn't even know how many people are citizens of the country.
People whine about how slow liberals are at throwing out illegals, but the fact of the matter is, unless you can positively match a person with a foreign visa or they admit it, it's impossible to prove a person is not a citizen. There is no database of citizens to reference.
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Fun fact: the US government doesn't even know how many people are citizens of the country.
People whine about how slow liberals are at throwing out illegals, but the fact of the matter is, unless you can positively match a person with a foreign visa or they admit it, it's impossible to prove a person is not a citizen. There is no database of citizens to reference.
Impossible to prove? And the Social Security database and/or birth certificate database are somehow incapable of this?
Yes, there ARE data repositories for validating citizenship status, so enough with the excuses. I have no idea how or why you feel the burden of proof is somehow impossible to determine by our government officials.
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Failure to register a foreign birth with the State Department risks the citizenship not being recognized if it's not done before the child's 18th birthday. Depending on the citizenship laws of the nation of birth and the parents, this places a risk of the child becoming stateless upon his or her 18th birthday.
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You missed the point: The census is there to find out if you tell the truth. If you lie, you get put on a blacklist of enemies of the country.
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Why should they care if "your letter wasn't stolen from your mailbox, or lost, or eaten by your dog" or you could not log on to their server to respond, or their server went done before it was able to store your response, or a meteor fell from space and destroyed the server and all the backups? It is sufficient that previous methods failed, by whoever's fault,and so they move to the fallback method.
OK, obviously they should care about stolen or lost mail, bad servers, or meteor strikes, but that is not on
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Who the heck actually participates in a census? And it is mandatory? You get fined? Is this common? You guys need to move to a civilized country like America.
It's mandatory in the US as well, although it hasn't been prosecuted since 1970. It's mandatory in virtually every country that has a census, including Canada, UK, France, Spain, and Ireland (where fines can go up to 44K euros).
13 U.S. Code 221 - Refusal or neglect to answer questions; false answers
(a) Whoever, being over eighteen years of age, refuses or willfully neglects, when requested by the Secretary, or by any other authorized officer or employee of the Department of Commerce or bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of the Secretary or authorized officer, to answer, to the best of his knowledge, any of the questions on any schedule submitted to him in connection with any census or survey provided for by subchapters I, II, IV, and V of chapter 5 of this title, applying to himself or to the family to which he belongs or is related, or to the farm or farms of which he or his family is the occupant, shall be fined not more than $100.
(b) Whoever, when answering questions described in subsection (a) of this section, and under the conditions or circumstances described in such subsection, willfully gives any answer that is false, shall be fined not more than $500.
(c) Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, no person shall be compelled to disclose information relative to his religious beliefs or to membership in a religious body.
(Aug. 31, 1954, ch. 1158, 68 Stat. 1023; Pub. L. 85–207, 15, Aug. 28, 1957, 71 Stat. 484; Pub. L. 94–521, 13, Oct. 17, 1976, 90 Stat. 2465.)
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shall be fined not more than $100
So, a privacy tax. Here's your $100. Now leave me alone.
"I nicked the census man." [youtube.com]
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charge you another $100
The receipt.
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Wrong. There is no double jeopardy rule allowing you to repeatedly break the law after being punished for the first violation.
They will love cash cows like you.
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refuses or willfully neglects, when requested by the Secretary, or by any other authorized officer or employee of the Department of Commerce or bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of the Secretary or authorized officer, to answer, to the best of his knowledge, any of the questions on any schedule submitted to him in connection with any census or survey provided for by subchapters I, II, IV, and V of chapter 5 of this title
Constitutional overreach, but what else is new? Last time I filled out the US census I only provided answers to questions to allow them to perform their constitutional duty. A rather aggressive census busybody kept coming to the door, which I did not answer, and he even went so far as to poke around the property and look in the windows, but eventually he gave up.
What am I missing here? (Score:2)
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Everybody knows Ancestry.com was started and is mainly staffed by Mormons although it is publicly traded so you can own part of it if you want (or at least it used to be, I can't seem to be able to find ACOM anymore on NASDAQ). Genealogy is important to the Mormons.
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Ancestry has no connection with the Mormons. Saying "Everyone knows" does not enhance the reliability of your false statement.
Don't make stuff up.
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Yeah right, just do your own research. Many sources available.
Start here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Hum, no mention of the Mormons on that page, so you must be right, right?
Now search what "Latter-day Saints" and "Brigham Young University" are. Search who Joseph A. Cannon and John Sittner are.
You will end up realizing that my post was entirely correct. I have never said there was direct or "official" ties between ancestry and the Mormons but as I said, everybody knows what I wrote in my first post.
Ar
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There's a meaningful difference between "some Mormons" and "the Mormons". This doesn't seem to be a business owned by the church, so saying it's owned by "the Mormons" is misleading.
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Again, I never said it was owned by the Mormons. I even said that anybody can own it. What is your problem?
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It's run by people who are. They are interested in that sort of stuff. Nothing sinister at all and I don't get why you think the above poster meant that Church instead of just people who belong to it.
The Vatican is not running your bank even if most of the people there are Christian.
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The Mormons maintain a separate project at familysearch.org.
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Just a matter of time now. (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's certainly painting a target on the system/s. Someone, somewhere will try.
OTOH, they seem to take security seriously. Recently introduced two-factor authentication via user ID, password (mine's > 12 characters), plus another code sent via SMS, all to get into my own accounts for taxation, family benefits, etc.
People are upset that they're keeping personal information this time - previously it was discarded. The personal info is supposedly going to be kept on separate systems from the rest of it, so I
The same Census. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
. . . told people not to list their religion as "Jedi" [bbc.co.uk]
Oz, you KNOW what you must do: make the Census FEEL the Power of the Force. Or at least that of the Farce. . . .
Elsewhere in the world.... (Score:1)
We don't see the problem.....
http://www.scb.se/en_/ [www.scb.se]
http://www.birthday.se/ [birthday.se] (In Swedish)
If you have rights (and benefits) given by the government they also have right know who you are.
The ABS can't even keep its telephones working (Score:1)
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I hope I'm wrong but doubt I will be. There have been three years of serious staff and other cutbacks at the ABS so I doubt they have the resources to cope.
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Congratulations are in order (Score:1)
This has been a long project by Australian Labor and the Liberal/Nationals - and let's not kid ourselves, especially the Attorney-General's Department who have been pulling the puppet strings of both for decades. Unelected bureaucrats, perpetually drunk on the hubris of the power they wield, that even the government in power can't get rid of.
Once census and data retention scheme information are merged, all of our individual dossiers will be complete. Even the Stasi would cream their pants at the mere thoug
Win 10 security risk (Score:1)
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When census night rolls around, you are supposed to fill it in for all those who are at the residence at that time. The information gathered is stripped of all personally identifying information and released for purposes such as population statistics, short term and long term planning of residential and government services.
Your information is way out of date. Despite assurances they did not strip personal information at all from the last census. They will be connecting your response last census to your response this census and every census after. They will also be pulling in data from other government and third party sources to build a rich personal profile (their words). They will then make this data available for research and commercial uses.
All this has been confirmed by the ABS in recent months. All of this is a change to
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> Re:Apparently census takers can use personal tablets
OMG, calm down - the ABS is not stupid! There will be no sensitive data on those personal tablets.
It has: list of properties to visit with reminder cards, notes on hazards such as dogs or abusive nutters, ...