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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?"
Just think about it for a second if a site that will hold that kind of information is going to get more traffic than a slashdotted site. Hope they don't do it in the US because no server the goverment can afford take that kind of beatting or cowboyneal could give to it!
A site cowboyneal will like http://www.freewebs.com/atpa/
I'd rather declare my faith as a Pastafarian.
Little old lady knocked on the door, gave me all the gear I needed. You get the normal forms and then an envelope containing your online code to be entered in for your household. I'll give the online one a bash and then fashion the paper one into a nice evening jacket...
Task Mangler
Jedi,
Down under, may the force be with you!
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."- Friedrich Nietzsche
The Canadian census fiasco caused me no end of grief. They never sent me a form and then hounded me for a month about not sending the form they didn't send me in. Then one day I get a notice pinned to my door, without the form of course, threatening jail time and fines (3 months and $500). Well that's motivating so I tried to fill the thing out on-line but since I did not get a form I did not get a special code to punch in. On top of all that the java thing wouldn't run in FF and linux anyway. (At least they tried to keep it non-IE specific, I'll give 'em that.) So I called the toll-free number on the notice and dude did the question thing over the phone in 2 minutes and gave me a confirmation number. "What's that for?", I wonder. "In case anyone calls", he says. Yeah, yeah, I'm here now go away. But no. They continue to leave me threatening notices and phone messages for another two weeks so I finally find the local number and give dudette my confirmation number. She apologizes and tells me there is no way for her to know if I did the thing on-line or by phone. "Say what?? But isn't it in some computer somewhere? I clearly heard dude tapping on a keyboard!" Well yes but how it works is I have to call her directly and give her the confirmation number because she does not have access to that computer and the people that do (in our nations capital I presume, or possibly the District of Columbia which would explain much) don't send the info back to the local door bangers. I guess that feature would complicate things and I suppose they're still working out a few bugs.
Maybe if Vista is out for the next one in 5 years the info will be able to move in both directions.
Absolutely agreed. It's kind of unfortunate that their economy isn't doing quite as well as Australia's at the moment, so I can't quite justify going and finding a job there, but I still like them. They still have asshole politicians, but I've always felt that even their asshole politicians are better than ours. :)
And of course, baaa.