Australia Conducting Electronic Census

ajdlinux writes "On 8th August 2006, the Australian Bureau of Statistics will be conducting the 2006 Census of Population and Housing. The big difference this year is that you will now be able to fill out your census online. The technology, developed by IBM, cost AU$9 million and is designed to be accessible to screen readers, and, unlike similar efforts in Canada, does not require any special software. However, there is concern that the 2011 eCensus could be integrated with the proposed Human Services Access Card. Will this turn the Census from an anonymous snapshot into one connected with name-identified information?"

Special software for Canada?

[Zab UvWxy]

Funny, I filled in my household's data the week the census was opened for submissions, and I sure don't recall having to install any special software. Maybe it was a Java applet, but it sure as hell wasn't anything that I had to take action on.

Fellow Canuckleheads, did you have to install anything?

NZ did it first :-)

[roca]

The NZ census held earlier this year supported Web-based online filing. It was a very clean UI (some touches of DHTML to streamline the interface), worked in IE, Firefox, Safari and Opera, and overall seemed to work very well indeed.

What special software?

[Minwee]

The Canadian online census form required a web browser and Java [statcan.ca]. While that's a step up from being a plain HTML form, I think calling it "special software" is a bit of an exaggeration.

Re:Special software for Canada?

[befletch]

Fellow Canuckleheads, did you have to install anything?

Yeah, I had to install this fancy program called a 'web browser'.

Seriously, I did mine using Safari on OS X, and I surf with plugins disabled. It could still have used Java, but that's it.

Special Software?

[nuckfuts]

...unlike similar efforts in Canada, does not require any special software.

I filled out my Canadian census online and didn't need any special software. All I used was Firefox, IIRC.

Re:Special software for Canada?

[Zygamorph]

Here are the software requirements

http://www50.statcan.ca/census2006/settings_1-0_e. htm/ [statcan.ca]

Which looks fairly inclusive. The only "special" things that I can see is that you must have any one of several Java virtual machines installed and support 128 bit encryption. It all seems reasonable.

Re:Don't Fear the Census

[askegg]

While the government could track certain things about you via BAS statements and tax returns, there is a LOT more information available in census data.

Re:Special software for Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

When the census site was initially rolled-out, it rejected browsers running on Linux. That was changed after complaints were made and it was noted there was nothing about the site as it was that wouldn't work with Linux.

Re:NZ did it first :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a very clean UI (some touches of DHTML to streamline the interface), worked in IE, Firefox, Safari and Opera,

Thanks :) Although it was Asp.Net we ended up using standards-compliant validators and it worked well. Our performance testing meant that it didn't come down during peak times too.

IBM have a poor performance record in Australia, anyone remember their Olympics site which was an accessibility nightmare and how they lied to say it would cost 50M to support WAI Level 1?

Re:NZ did it first :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, NZ did it in March this year. And there was a *lot* of effort put into ensuring that the interface worked on pretty much every graphical browser known to man. Or the big four, at least. Another interesting aspect was the effort put into supporting a Maori language version.

A very well-run project by Statistics NZ and partners, even if they didn't quite get the number of online respondees they were expecting.

http://subs.nzherald.co.nz/column/story.cfm?c_id=7 09&ObjectID=10371864 [nzherald.co.nz]

Re:This Census is a Wasted Opportunity

[1u3hr]

I can think of one question that would be highly applicable to all Australians: Would you support recycled sewerage being pumped back to the potable water supply?

How about "Have you stopped beating your wife?".

All water is "recycled sewage". Every drop you drink has been pissed out of billions of creatures. Back to the question: You have to give alternatives, obviously no one will choose to drink "recycled sewage" whewn you ask that question. What is the alternative "fresh, clean, distilled water at zero cost"? (I think not.) Paying more for desalinated water? Paying more to pipe it in from thousands of miles away? Singapore has been drinking "recycled sewage" for decades, and a more antiseptic place you've never seen.

Re:Anonymous snapshot?

[Elvis77]

The Commonwealth Government already know all about you if you:
1. Pay taxes
2. Get allowances for your children or
3. Have a child born.

When our 4th child was born I earned too much money to be able to claim the $15.00 per fortnight allowance so we didn't fill in the forms in the hospital ($15.00 I don't have to earn is better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick right?). Three years later when Ethan was going to day care they (the Commonwealth Public Servants) had kittens

"When did you adopt Ethan?", "Are you his natural mother?" "When did you get possession of Ethan?" His birth certificate sorted it out in the end.

For the non Aussies out there the State Government registers births and issues birth certificates but the Commonwealth Government pays the $15.00 per fortnight and childcare allowance.

See statement from the Australian Statistician

[paddyfromoz]

See statement from the Australian Statistician "Statement by the Australian Statistician confirming the confidentiality of the Census There have been suggestions of a possible link between the Census and the forthcoming Access Card, otherwise known as the 'Smartcard'. I can give an iron clad guarantee that absolutely no individual Census information will be provided for inclusion on the Access Card. Besides, it would be illegal to do so. There are very strong secrecy provisions in the statistics legislation that prevent release of identifiable information to anyone, including Government agencies. Breaches are subject to heavy fines and/or imprisonment. Your Census information will be absolutely confidential. The ABS has an outstanding track record in protecting the confidentiality of Census information and that will continue. Dennis Trewin Australian Statistician" Source: www.abs.gov.au/census then select Media Centre

Re:Anonymous snapshot?

[Politas]

Those questions are on a section of the form which is discarded before data entry. The names and addresses are only used in the data collection stage. It does not become part of the census dataset.

And yes, I used to work for the Australian Bureau of Statistics, so I know what I'm talking about.

It is completely impossible for anyone working at the Bureau of Stats to find out how much money any individual earned four years ago. (Well, apart from some statistical outliers.) The part of the form with the names is torn off and shredded before data entry. If you are concerned about privacy of your personal information, worry about the ATO, Centrelink, FaCS, etc, but forget the ABS.

Please don't put in phony religions. If you're an atheist, say so. The Census is important.

Re:Special software for Canada?

[khendron]

That Java applet packaged up all the information, signed and encrypted it with credentials that were uniquely assigned to you. This provided end to end (from your browser all the way to the backend database) encryption and integrity protection, which is something that banking web sites do not have. Banks don't need it because if there is a problem, you will notice pretty quickly, pick up the phone, and do something about it. For the census, on the other hand, how would you know whether or not your data has ben tampered with? They put the high security up front because they knew there would be nobody verifying its correctness down the road.

It took me all of 5 minutes to complete the online form, so you must have run into some sort of server load problem.

Re:Specific Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

"... to protest the Howard/Costello coservative constitutional amendments rushed through to stop such an act."

I am sure I would have remebered the referendum, even if rushed. I think you mean rushed legislative amendments. I don't remember them doing anything like that either, but I'm not the most astute of policial observers. I do remeber Ruddock causing the ACT same-sex state-union laws to be trashed; this is after the ACT government had negotiaged with the federal government and had made corresponding alterations to the legislation in exchange for a promise that it would not be blocked.