The next national census, in 2021, is likely to carry questions about gender identity, smoking, previous or current service in the military, sexual orientation and chronic health conditions, the Australian Bureau of Statistics boss David Kalisch has revealed.
Some questions likely to disappear include the number of cars people have or their internet access options. The only reason for dropping the internet question appears to be so the government isn not embarrassed by failed NBN rollout and service speeds.
Kalisch, who presided over a census disaster in 2016 when IT systems failed dramatically to deliver during the $500m exercise, said lessons from that calamity “are informing” planning for the 2021 event. Given past performance – the ABS is a very slow learner, and frequently interprets “lessons” uniquely – the census is no certainty to improve.
The national statistician also claimed that all names collected from the last census have now been destroyed, while the address data will be destroyed by August 2020.
But such a claim is a disingenuous furphy, Australian Privacy Foundation guru (and CLA member) Prof Roger Clarke says.
“The data from this census, other censuses and surveys, and multiple government agencies, is all consolidated against an alternative identifier, and that identifier is linked to a database of names and addresses,” Prof Clarke said.
And, CLA says, increasingly the same type of information is available to be linked to the national photo ID database – believed to hold more than 8 million photos of you and me and at least a third of the Australian population – and to any data about us. https://tinyurl.com/y2ergvvc