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?"

Comments

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?

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.

Re:Special software for Canada?

[Zygamorph]

Here are the software requirements

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

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:Special software for Canada?

[Reed Solomon]

I Already had Java installed. How hard is it to install Java and a web browser? Worked fine. The only sickening thing about the Canadian census was it was being handled by an american firm. Like I want my information sifted through by the american government just because it goes through an american proxy and is subject to american laws? Screw that.

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.

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.

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

Re:NZ did it first :-)

[ozmanjusri]

who gives a shit what the hell NZ does.

You should. NZ is often well ahead of the pack when it comes to political freedoms. Universal suffrage, indigenous rights, social services and even the McGillicuddy Serious Party were established there well in advance of most of the world.
I'm an Aussie, so I should be taking the piss out of them, but the Kiwis benefit strongly from having a compact country, well educated population and a history of pragmatic politics.

PS, I'm a little ashamed of saying nice things about UnZudders, so if uny uv ewes read thus, please take the puss ut uv yersulves. Thunks.

Re:NZ did it first :-)

[Pete]

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.

I'd like to see the hardware.

[Frogbert]

I'd like to see the hardware they have to handle the web traffic. There will be litterally millions of people trying to access the webpage on the day. I'd really like to submit my information electronically but I'm not going to wait around for ages to do it if the system dies in the arse.

I'd rather fill out the form if its going to take me just as much time to submit it online.

Assuming the system stands up to the traffic I'm all for it. I can type my details much faster then write them and I don't have to talk to the census collector when they come to get it.

Also:
Jedi as your religion FTW!

What special software?

[Minwee]

The Canadian online census form required a web browser and Java. 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:What special software?

[ispeters]

Well, it didn't work for me. I s'pose I'm not the typical Canadian, but Firefox on Linux is not supported by the 2006 Canadian census (although Firefox on Windows is).

At first I thought it was 'cause I'm running a 64-bit Firefox on AMD64, but even the 32-bit version on my x86 laptop wouldn't let me finish. I tried to bypass their checks using a Firefox plugin that spoofs the User Agent, but then it froze part way through and I lost all my work. I was very frustrated, to say the least, considering it's just a friggin survey and you don't need anything more than SSL and HTML 4.0.

Ian

Don't Fear the Census

[Umbral Blot]

It is silly to worry about the cenusus being used to collect your personal information. The government already does that much more frequently and accurately through taxes.

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.

More traffic than a slashdotted site

[wildman6801]

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!

Got my information pack a couple of days ago...

[Centurix]

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...

This Census is a Wasted Opportunity

[sasha328]

The census comes around every 5 years. The questions are so bland, and demographic as to really make this census, not useless, but a wasted opportunity.
It would have been so easy to include some extra questions (not political ones, because no government would agree in mid-term), but rather social questions. Like some national survey instead of a selective one (like a poll of a 1000 people).
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?
Or
Rate your preference for a solution to the water shortage problems: 1) Desalination, 2) recycling, 3) more dams, 4) long distance canals, 5) relocate the towns/cities, etc...

But, all the questions are related to how do you get to work, how much do you earn and where do you study...
Sad. Same questions as last census.
Hopefully in the future this will change.

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.

Screwing up methodology?

[NewsWatcher]

"Will this turn the Census from an anonymous snapshot into one connected with name-identified information?"

I would think another problem is that it will mean the census is no longer a snapshot of a single day in Australia.

Check out this article.

Re:Screwing up methodology?

[askegg]

And no one ever filled in their census forms before the "official" day before now?

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.

Anonymous snapshot?

[Swift(void)]

Will this turn the Census from an anonymous snapshot into one connected with name-identified information?"

Errr, the first 2 questions of the census is "Whats your address" and "Whats the name of everybody at this address on census night". They dont need some card to tie the data to particular people. They can already do that if they want, and have been able to for many many years. I am sure it would not take too much effort for them to find out how much money i was earning 4 years ago, whether i have moved house, and what phoney religion i put in last time.

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.

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:Anonymous snapshot?

[Politas]

There was a study done recently that compared quality of life and certain indicators of "progressive societies" to percentage of atheists. Such a study can only use the statistics as published by the ABS to garner information about how many atheists are in Australia. Religious figures use statistics as support for their drive to make secular law similar to religious law.

The ABS cannot make assumptions about what people "actually mean". If you put down "Jedi" or "Pastafarian", then your form will be coded as "other", so you'll add to the estimates for odd cults.

The Census is a serious piece of scientific investigation. The data from it gets used in thousands of different ways. It's not a tool of governmental control, but a way to help our government to be representative. If you give incorrect information, you are, to an admittedly small degree, reducing the government's awareness and reason for caring about people in your situation.

Please, spare us

[violet16]

Christ, the last thing you want is to start putting questions like that on a census.

Almost all social research can deliver highly accurate findings using a relatively small sample. Interviewing one thousand people will give you extremely high levels of confidence in the results, providing of course you don't fuck up the methodology. After that, you're mostly wasting everybody's time.

Australians are required to complete the census by law. Even if you make the questions optional, adding a bunch of "nice-to-know"s is a big misuse of national manpower. And just imagine the kind of push-polling you'd get if you opened the floodgates and let government departments throw in social-research questions. ("Do you support the government protecting the lives of unborn babies by banning stem cell research?")

There's a need for social research, and governments already do enormous amounts of it. But you don't need to interview 20 million people to find out that most people don't like the idea of drinking recylcled sewerage.

On the religion choice

[Mir322]

Jedi,

Down under, may the force be with you!

Re:Hmm

[astromog]

That's a common practice, and it can lead to some amusing events. One (sort of) lucky census collector got to briefly ride on one of the world's biggest cruise liners during NZ's census earlier this year.

Having completed the census

[dcam]

I can say the they have done quite a good job. It is pretty slick. Some DHTML (mostly disabling questions based on earlier answers).

I imagine it will seriously cut down the amount of time taken to process the census. I have a friend who works on this stuff so I might ask him.

One complaint they have is that lots of people are filling out the census before the actual census night. This is allowed, you are answering questions about what will be happening on a night in the future.

Census != sense

[bunhed]

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.

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