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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/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @04:29AM
Xenophobe, the Australian foreigner fearing prince. I sense a Netflix series in the making, very low-budget, made in New Zealand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @04:55AM
I am just an Anonymous Coward - but your courage is admirable: the people of South Australia are behind you - please save us from the cruel Canberra regime!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:18AM
South Australia are behind you
Of course you are. From behind is how you fuck your sheep.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:30AM
You're confusing us with the kiwis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @10:18AM
Because ozzies fuck their sheep from sides, eh?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @11:57AM
Nah we do it to your face ;)
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday August 09 2016, @08:08AM
safe sex New Zealand: Why do Kiwi farmers paint "X" on some sheep? So they can remember which ones kick.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:30AM
The census topic just came up in a meeting at $work. 5 out of 6 are intending to not put their name & address on the census.
Even the former deputy privacy commissioner of NSW is not going to do it [theage.com.au]. The change to include names and addresses came up in the last two censuses as well, and was shot down in flames on privacy grounds. Nothing has changed, other than that this time they're steaming ahead and hoping they'll get away with it. This is what gets on my goat. If there was an actual, well reasoned, well supported, debated and agreed upon change I'd grudgingly agree. What they're doing is ramming it in the back door and pretending it's not a big deal, all the evidence to the contrary. That is not on, and to me not only justifies civil disobedience, but morally requires it.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:04AM
So, crap, now there are no Austrailians on the planet? And this is supposed to be a bad thing?
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Tuesday August 09 2016, @08:52AM
We'll still be here, just with less *statistical certainty*
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 09 2016, @09:04AM
We'll still be here, just with less *statistical certainty*
And isn't that just always the way it is, in the Land Down Under, where women, umm, something, and Men Thunder? G'day, mates.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:50AM
...What they're doing is ramming it in the back door and pretending it's not a big deal, all the evidence to the contrary.
This is just some more of Bushfire Tony's leftover extremist baggage that we can't seem to avoid.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday August 09 2016, @11:43AM
For reference, what is the current value of $work?
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday August 09 2016, @08:37AM
The government certainly knows my name and where I live. It'd be kinda hard to hide from them. They even my SSN! So, what's the big deal?
Or does the Australian census collect information more than how many people live in every location?
(Score: 3, Informative) by caffeine on Tuesday August 09 2016, @09:19AM
The Australian census is very comprehensive. Part of the deal has always been that details of specific people can never be looked up, even by the minister in charge of the department. The logis has been that people would be more honest if they knew they were anonymous.
The best argument I've seen for this is that researchers can use a database of people who die in a year from Births, Deaths and Marriages dept, pass the names, last know addresses and DOBs to the census people and get that to give statistics of mortality rates for our indigenous citizens. Census seems to be the only database that holds the breakdown of peoples ancestory.
Personally, I'm undecided on what I'll put down on the name field and tonight is census night.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Tuesday August 09 2016, @12:00PM
> Personally, I'm undecided on what I'll put down on the name field and tonight is census night.
Fortunately for you, you don't have to work it out tonight seeing as the entire ABS site has crashed...
(Score: 2, Funny) by VLM on Tuesday August 09 2016, @12:33PM
The Australian census is very comprehensive.
Does anyone have a link? I can't find a form online. You'd think some .gov.au address would have a download / fill out official version or some media site would have uploaded a sample.
From what I've read
1) In .au the forms are all the same (which might not be true?), all are the equivalent of the USA long form on steroids. In the USA they give a long form to a small fraction of the population. My Dad filled out what seemed to be a 20 page long form for us in '90 and I'm not related to or met anyone else who's ever filled out a USA long form. In the USA the short form is nothing but the name and address so in burger land people are getting confused because if you leave off the name and address on the short form you pretty much have a blank form.
2) There is a lot of social media traffic about how it would be a great idea to "force" people to answer truthfully about the religious questions (how?) and change.org petitions and similar madness. All I can say is we just spent a century rounding people up and gas chambering some of them for their census religious records, anyone in .au who enters anything but "none" is some kind of idiot. Anyone dumb enough to tell the .gov they're a Muslim deserves to be on the not-fly-list for sheer stupidity. I mean, you just don't tell the government stuff like that unless you're an idiot.
3) The articles go nuts about $180 PER DAY fines for not filling out the form and people including government leaders are going nuts about not filling out forms both for and against and nobody is talking in the corporate media (probably a gag order?) about the fine for false data being only $1800 which is only ten days of fine for failure to fill out. I'm not seeing the problem here? Just lie about anything that can't be easily proven? Give big brother the data he already has WRT obviously provable in law court stuff like names and addresses, but if evil big brother wants to know about your relationship with God or Gods or no Gods don't be an idiot and not fill out the form over it, just make some shit up for anything that can't be trivially proven in a court of law.
4) A standard burgerland belief is that non-professional tax preparer citizens could never fill out something as complicated as a single page 1040-EZ tax form and you really need to pay at least $250 for a consultant who's dumber than you to "help" with the data entry. So I would assume there's a cultural belief that your average idiot off the street can't fill out a long census form. This ties in with the maximum $1800 for falsified data, note its not $1800 for wrong or inaccurate data, specifically falsified. If it gets investigated or you go to court you probably can't get away with pretending you have no idea what your address is or your name (well... maybe you gave your nickname or your kids nickname?). But if they ask something complicated and you shrug shoulders and write down likely looking idiocy you'll probably get away with it. When my Dad filled out the USA long form I vaguely remember him answering the BTU rating of our furnace and he just read it off the nameplate but you know darn well that 90% of the population is going to enter a random number or copy out of an ad in the Sunday paper.
5) .AU is super Puritan so you either think and do what the good people think is good, or the punishments are extremely severe, please remind everyone who's not .AU here about their crazy punishments for not voting. The opposition to the Puritan ethic is two fold, in that some fraction of the population wants to tell them to F off and mind their own damn business as a general principle, and the other fraction is terrified they'll be in a coma in an ICU in a hospital and in the USA you'd wake up to discover your entire family got the economic death penalty from the hospital bill but in .AU you'd wake up to find out you got the real death penalty for not voting while you were unconscious. They really are crazy Puritans like something right out of Massachusetts. At least thats how .au appears to outsiders, aside from every living animal on your continent being poisonous and the accents are pretty hot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @02:50PM
What a completely illogical rant about something you obviously know nothing about.
The crazy punishment for not voting is $20, assuming you don't just give them a 1/2 decent excuse.
One can only assume the rest of your post is just as ill-informed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @03:49AM
A grand total of 100 people were fined last census. One can only assume they were too stupid to put the empty forms back into the envelope.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday August 09 2016, @12:43PM
Part of the deal has always been that details of specific people can never be looked up, even by the minister in charge of the department.
Just for the record every country has said that for their own census and its always been a lie. Australia is unlikely to be unique. So you HAVE to fill out your form with the understanding that the craziest bloodthirstiest policeman, judge, border patrol agent, and politician is going to read and take maximum advantage of it.
The census should be honest and read you your miranda rights along the lines of "anything to say can and will be used against you in a court of law".
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Tuesday August 09 2016, @03:21PM
Apparently we are unique. Every census before this one had no identifying information on the actual form, and they were collected in identical envelopes by the local census collector. It was roughly as anonymous as casting a paper vote.
Could they track you? Sure, if they knew in advance they wanted your specific information, they could secretly mark the form or the envelope. What they couldn't do was look you up afterwards to see what you said.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @09:40AM
SSN? You mean tax file number
or "drivers licence" although bugger me if I can remember the last time I showed it to a cop
The gas and electric company wanted my drivers licence to connect. I told them I don't drive. Then they asked for my proof of age card. Told em I don't drink. Asked for my date of birth. I asked why they need it since they know where I live. In the end she just connected the gas and water. Why they try to collect all our info I may never know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:29PM
Debt collection.
The more info they know about you, the more clearly they can identify you and the more likely they'll be able to collect what you owe them in the event it comes to that.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday August 10 2016, @03:39AM
I meant SSN. Although, if you file taxes under a different scheme, they would know that too. Or do you think the government doesn't need to know your Social Security number?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @01:58PM
how exactly they protect the data, i.e. do they use the industry standard best practices or just a "sternly written" post-it note that forbids gov employees do naughty things with the data. Dream on I bet, they'll plead national security or anything. Or just blatantly lie, like businesses they regulate that "lose" massive data dumps that supposedly were properly protected and get but a slap on the wrist...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SDRefugee on Tuesday August 09 2016, @02:12PM
I visited Australia in January 1970 on R&R from Vietnam, and even though I was only there for a week in Sydney, I was so impressed with the people and the
fact that Australia was basically the size of the US, with only the population of our state of California, that I strongly considering going thru the hassle of emigrating there after my time in the US Army was over.
Now, today, when I read things like this, I see the Australian government is getting as bat-shit insane as the US government...
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 2) by https on Tuesday August 09 2016, @02:39PM
Historically in Canada, names are a mandatory part of the paper census form - I can't speak to the online form yet - but there was an explicit, simple procedure that physically separated the names from the data in the census department. You would have to do a whole lot of work to convince me the same effect could be achieved by simply having two different databases. If the databases were actual databases, i.e. with transactional timestamped records (you know, integrity), fuck you it can't be done.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday August 09 2016, @03:46PM
They'll just look for the census form without a name, and they'll know it's him.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:48PM
The point of this is to challenge it, not to keep his privacy. He's doing everyone else a favor, whereas you seem to be selfish. And I doubt he'd be the only one who refuses to write his name anyway.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday August 09 2016, @08:49PM
It. Was. A. JOKE.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 09 2016, @09:29PM
Joke? AC gets it! Look, he left his name off his post, to save the rest of us, for great justice!