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from the if-in-doubt,-challenge-the-system dept.
The independent senator Nick Xenophon says he will refuse to include his name on his census form on Tuesday, knowing he could be prosecuted for it, because he is not convinced the national census does not present a huge privacy risk.
He says he is willing to make himself a test case to challenge the government's ability to prosecute Australians for withholding their name from the census and he has not changed his mind despite speaking to the chief statistician of the Bureau of Statistics.
"I understand that, by refusing to provide my name, I will be given a notice under the act to comply and the $180-a-day fine starts from then," Xenophon said on Monday. "I will contest any such notice and, by doing so, I will in effect turn it into a test case for the ability of this request.
"In the meantime, I will be seeking amendments to section 14 of the act so that a person cannot be prosecuted if they fail to provide their name. In other words, it will ensure such information is unambiguously non-compulsory.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @04:22AM
Come on, where is the scientific method in NOT MEASURING data? Yes, a bit of privacy is lost but society gains a lot by knowing where to build hospitals and schools and roads. Just like anti-vaxxers, the people against censuses (censis?) are basically saying "screw you". I bet a person loses more privacy just doing a google search or just visiting facebook than by filling out any census, long form or short form.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @04:44AM
How does not filling in your name stop them from knowing where to build hospitals and schools?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @03:45PM
Or building immigration services or english-as-a-second-language services or aditional driver training services?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @04:48AM
In the US, census data was used to round up ethnic japanese for the internment camps. [scientificamerican.com] We didn't gas them like the germans did the jews, but many of them lost everything they owned, particularly real estate, because they weren't around to watch their stuff and couldn't make payments like mortgages and property taxes.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:23AM
Yet that's minutiae compared to what Big Data now has on each of us.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:51AM
What is your point?
That we could do much worse to another minority group today?
At least "big data" is not legally mandated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @11:41AM
At first glance I thought your opening sentence said "internet camps" and immediatly thought we were building some sort of secret online gaming weapon against the Koreans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @02:04PM
Even today, the FBI continues to use census data [washingtonpost.com] to target minorities.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:59AM
Google and Facebook are voluntary. I don't use Google or Facebook, and use various addons to block tracking garbage. One thing does not justify the other.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 09 2016, @10:16AM
Speaking of measuring data, what is the measure of your name, AC?
What relevancy can a statistic bureau can get from the name in the census form?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford