There is also this handy page summarizing legal opinions: http://cannold.com/articles/article/protesting-oz-census-2016-what-legal-exp... On 5 August 2016 at 12:49, Olivier Mehani <shtrom+fsau@ssji.net> wrote:
Hi all,
Not really software-Freedom related, but civil liberties and privacy seem more in more seem to go hand-in-hand with the topic, and are once more eroding.
You might have heard that, this year (well, next week), data collected for the Australian Census will contain and, more worryingly, retain identifying information along with the responses [0], with no possibility to opt-out.
This is concerning both from a privacy and a data-quality perspectives. First, non-anonymous surveys create the risk, when (not if) data is leaked, that people will be discriminated or persecuted based on their responses. There already are some nutters suggesting to use this information to track people based on their religious beliefs [1].
Then, it also increases the risk that people will not respond truly to protect things they might not want to see attached to their name. Or things they might think can become dangerous for them in the future (once again, [1]).
I'm trying to think about ways to give truthful answers while masking one's identity, but I suspect it will be difficult considering they gave a per-household code. Perhaps we should all make sure to not be home on census day, and congregate in public places to fill in the details. Any other ideas about how to de-correlate responses from identity?
Anyway, there are a couple of petitions floating around [2,3] asking the ABS to revert this decision. It's getting a bit late but, if you care, please sign them and circulate them around.
I'm trying really hard not to score a Godwin point right now.
[0] https://www.efa.org.au/privacy/census-2016/ [1] DON'T SIGN THAT ONE https://www.change.org/p/ david-kalisch-abs-gov-au-make-it-compulsory-on-australian- census-form-to-answer-the-question-about-religion DON'T SIGN THAT ONE [2] https://www.change.org/p/australian-bureau-of- statistics-reverse-australian-bureau-of-statistics-s- removal-of-census-anonymity [3] http://campaigns.greens.org.au/ea-action/action?ea.client. id=1792&ea.campaign.id=49505
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