Tonight is census night!
(www.abc.net.au)
AustraliaGuys idk iirc or not but I feel like census was a general overall grasp for statistics, not asking such invasive questions, am I misremembering or have we never had to put our full names and details on the census before? Maybe I'm tripping
We have always needed to name the people in the house that night, we have always been asked demographic questions.
Sexual orientation hasn't been in it for long; how you get to work likewise
All questions matter for policy creation. You need to know how many religious or gay people there are in each region to know what services need to be provided or approved.
So like, gay people riding on busses ?
Or gay people doing trains
I doubt they're making that data set, but local government might use the gay data to approve a gay club, or include more or less health information for those sexualities in places where's they provide such
They might use method to get to work numbers by region to see which places are doing public transit better so poor performing localities can more easily see how to improve
It was big news amongst lots of people a few years back. These things get a lot of attention amongst privacy advocates and techies and but don't get through to the mainstream who can't tell the difference between reasoned fears and the opinions of loony influencers/conspiracy theorists. They are too busy sharing dick picks and publishing their life history on Meta. If only we had a responsible and ethical media who would help inform the public instead of pushing sponsor messages and mining clicks.
I believe the aim is to link data from various sources to enable more complex analysis. As such anonymized ids are likely reversible in many cases. Unfortunately voters didn't really get an opportunity to debate and have a say on the matter and we are probably stuck with it now.
I think they increased personal details at the same time that they eliminated immediate destruction 2 censuses ago. The change came alongside a promise of "anonymisation" which was roundly mocked for being not actually anonymisation (rather deidentification) and trivially reversible. IIRC they made one minor change that didn't really fix anything and called it a day. Nobody talked about it the next census.
Apparently no one lives at my house.
In the current era of populism I think it's daft to be providing this type of information to a government department.
I'd pay the fine if that's what it came down to.
I’d pay the fine if that’s what it came down to.
This isn't the token fine for not voting. It's $364 per day.
That's true but the risk of being fined is infinitesimal.
Very few people are fined each time, less than 100 australia wide:
https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/no-one-yet-prosecuted-over-2016-census-boycott/8315898
The fine is $364 per day up to a maximum of 10 days for refusing to follow the direction of a statistician.
So if you don't complete the form, their policy is to contact you in person and ask, then give you a direction to complete the form. If you refuse to follow that direction they may refer you to court but that's not necessarily the case.
They also have a policy of only referring people when their refusal harms the quality of the census. That pretty much means they're only going to fine conscientious objectors, and assholes.
In my own case, I did not refuse to complete the form. I completed the form incorrectly. The potential fine is $3,640 or something. I would be interested to see a case in which they could apply that. Without an admission of guilt it would be difficult to prosecute and ultimately yield no benefit.
The gov could figure out 98% of what you put down on the census using other means. I.e im trans. They can work that out by listing my perscriptions easy peasy.
They don't know I'm bi if I don't tell them though. Also the ABS probably doesn't have access to Medicare data
Thats true, but you can lie or prefer to not say (at least on that Question).
Also I meant the gov in general, the government has access to my health record albeit with presumably lots of privacy laws preventing random non consensual access.
There are also private companies data collection to worry about of course (which one should put a lot of effort in preventing).
My point is a census in terms of privacy is so low down on the list on privacy issues. If anything its very private, given the various laws preventing access.
Not to say you should out yourself because of that, and choosing prefer not to say or straight is ok, just making a general point on the census.
Census privacy to me seems most important within the household – they made it easy for any person to have their own form to fill in private and they tell you how to make sure your privately completed form is counted instead of the one your conservative father filled out on your behalf ("the most complete form will be used")
That's not really an argument in favor of the census though.
If they already have the information then they don't need the census.
I agree that that isn't a good argument.
A better argument is that this is how the government gets a sense for what the population is. For example, a growing percentage of "non-religious" or (to a lesser extent) non-Christian religious makes it harder for the government to continue justifying subsidies for religious schools and special status for religious organisations. A higher percentage of people saying they travel to work by bike or public transport helps justify increasing funding for those methods over continued motornormativity.
harder for the government to continue justifying subsidies
I don't think political parties will rely on census data for that. Once reference groups demonstrate that a policy of reducing those concessions has broad support it will be a policy. It doesn't matter what the census says.
people saying they travel to work by bike
They measure this with direct observations - how many cyclists use pathways et cetera. There's no city in Australia that's going to look at census data and decide to invest in bike infrastructure.
Demand for public transport is measured by... the numbers of people using public transport.
The funding thing is a common argument but in almost all cases it seems that direct observations would be more useful.
Did anyone else find it full of errors?
Two examples:
- It asks you to list relationship to someone you live with. I put my wife. For me, it then asked if I was married. My wife put me, and never asked if she was married.
- It asked about someone living with us, so we put the mother in law who lives in the granny flat. It then asked what her relationship was to me, but not my wife?
Few other examples floating around in it. Mostly just weird logic.
I know someone who had a guest staying over at their home on census night. Not a tenant, not a life partner, not a family friend, just a guest. Apparently the questions the census asked about them were the same as if they were your wife or personal relative. Questions that are wildly inappropriate and invasive to ask your guest.
- What's your income, exactly?
- What's your gender? And also birth sex?
- Are you gay? Straight?
- Where do you work? Specifically, street address? How do you get there? How many hours per week?
- Where were your parents born?
- Where were you 5 years ago on this date?
- Etc
There was no way to just send a link so they can fill in their section privately online. Seems like an obvious feature to add. You have to just give them your device unlocked and hang around awkwardly hoping they don't mess with it, either that or roleplay as the secret police and begin the interrogation.
You can let them fill in the section for themselves if you trust each other not to look at each other's parts of the form, or they can click the button on the census page to create a new form.
They say that if they get two forms for the same person they will keep the most complete one
This is pretty good for privacy
It was a bit old fashioned on marriage though, you're only married for census purposes if it's registered, but there's no need to register a marriage now, you're treated the same everywhere it matters (a defacto spouse is treated like a spouse for medical purposes, for example)
I wonder why they don't want to know how many of the marriages are registered and how many are not.
So reading the ABS website they could have contacted the ABS to ask for a separate census form or should have filled it out prior to the 11th of August if they knew where they would be on the 11th.
Were you person 1? The census defines family relationships using their relationship to person 1. It's a little weird but not incorrect
I probably was.
There was also no option for "in law" options, which I thought might be important to know.
I am quite enjoying people complain about providing all this information to "the grubberment"... on Facebook. With all their details filled in and profile not private in any way.
No, it was fine for me. We are a couple with no unusual living arrangements, though.
