G.P.O. Box 1196,  Sydney   NSW   2001

email:	mail@privacy.org.au

web:	www.privacy.org.au

MEDIA RELEASE
The Revised Census Proposal
18 August 2005

The Australian Bureau of Statistics announced in April 2005 that it intended to make radical changes to the Census changing it from anonymous to identifiable, linking entries from successive Censuses, and adding in data from other government sources.

The APF, along with many other people, argued very strongly against the implementation of such a grossly intrusive measure.

The ABS has today announced revisions to its Proposal.

The APF does not accept the new proposal.

Despite the revisions, the primary objective of the proposal is still to create a Statistical Longitudinal Census Dataset (the SLCD) – a set of data about people that links information about them over time, from one Census to the next. 

By contrast, the current and long-standing practice is that Census data is not linked either over time, or with information from other sources.

The proposal is thus to convert the Census from being an anonymous ‘snapshot’ of Australians’ lives once every five years, into a ‘movie’ highlighting changes in their lives.

In response to the privacy risks highlighted by the Australian Privacy Foundation and other concerned organisations and individuals, the ABS has changed its proposal to only cover 5% of the population, instead of the entire population.

The revised proposal - to keep longitudinal records on 5% of Australians – still poses great risks and is unacceptable to the APF.  About 1 million people would have their records compulsorily linked from one census to the next.  It is also a much more substantial proposal than the UK practice of linking census data on 1% of their population over time.
This latest revision of the proposal by the ABS is a recognition of the significant levels of concern in the community, about the risks of privacy invasion posed by the original proposal.  It is also a recognition that seeking to match 2006 census records back in time to 2001 records would have been a breach of the promises made to Australians in 2001.

But it still contains threats that would not be acceptable to the Australian public.

We are also concerned that the ABS has not yet provided enough clarity about what this latest variant of the proposal entails.

For example the ABS says in its media release of today that the ABS “may” add in extra data, and “might” use disease register information, to add to the  longitudinal data collected on these 1 million people.  But then in the Statement of Intention they say they won’t use the 5% SLCD with other ABS datasets.  It must be asked by what means the data from other databases, should they be matched with the ABS data, will be identified as belonging to individuals in the sample?

This revised proposal needs much more detail fleshed out, so that Australians can understand and assess the substantial privacy risks, and debate whether those risks are outweighed by the benefits that the ABS is asserting would arise.

A further Privacy Impact Assessment of this new proposal is necessary, and a further period allowing broad public consultation.

The APF continues to oppose the Proposal as being a breach of trust, and a serious threat to trustworthiness of the Census.

Contacts for This Media Release:	Roger Clarke
						(02) 6288 1472
						Roger.Clarke@xamax.com.au

						David Vaile, Vice Chair
						0414 731 249
						vicechair@privacy.org.au

_______________________________________________________________
The Australian Privacy Foundation has been an effective advocate for privacy protections since 1987, representing the public interest to governments, corporations and industry associations.