Census 2016

Discussion in 'Living Room' started by bob shovel, 28th Jul, 2016.

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  1. bob shovel

    bob shovel Well-Known Member

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    Who's excited!?

    Census 2016 home page - Australian Bureau of Statistics

    This is the first year it can be completed online and they expecting 65% of the population to do so. Good to see it's headed that way, the nostalgic types can still complete the paper version.

    I will be an official deliverer for this one which will be interesting and another random job to add to my resume :) saw the ad on the notice board and thought it would be fun. Can't complain so far

    Now if you have your tin foil hat is already on, read this
    Privacy, confidentiality & security
    It's been going since 1905 and they always take names and addresses.this year they will be destroyed once entered or 4 years after census.

    There's a few stat addicts amongst us so you would be extra excited i imagine ;)
     
  2. teetotal

    teetotal Well-Known Member

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    Good luck with the job. I did that last census, its good side income.
    And Some Interesting ppl you'll meet. ;)
     
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  3. kierank

    kierank Well-Known Member

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    I will be overseas. I assume I won't be counted this time.
     
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  4. bob shovel

    bob shovel Well-Known Member

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    Unfortunately you are no use to your community being away:D
     
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  5. Ed Barton

    Ed Barton Well-Known Member

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    Is there betting on the odds of the govt system crashing and no one being able to complete?
     
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  6. bob shovel

    bob shovel Well-Known Member

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    Haha i think you can start earlier online so it's staggered. They may be expecting it
     
  7. House

    House Well-Known Member

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    If you're concerned about privacy, they've been tracking 1% of the population without consent

    Peter Martin:The ABS has been quietly holding on to our names for years
     
  8. bob shovel

    bob shovel Well-Known Member

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    The article doesn't really go into detail of the holding of a small % of names. Id think if you've done a tax return and filled out anything else gov related they already know what you're having for breakfast right now. Atleast the census will help funding your local area appropriately
     
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  9. Ed Barton

    Ed Barton Well-Known Member

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    It's probably a good test for online voting.
     
  10. ramblin72

    ramblin72 Well-Known Member

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    Hopefully those who design the annual July crash on the ATO website haven't worked on the census website.
     
  11. mcarthur

    mcarthur Well-Known Member

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    Good point. It's one thing to design for a hit like tax, which is actually spread out over a period. Even things like student submission for Centrelink - which is point-in-time - is a subset of the population. The census has to work first time, perfectly, for the entire population. Hard to plan for in the electronic world!
     
  12. Lizzie

    Lizzie Well-Known Member

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    Did an online vote for the last state election as was going to be away - was really annoyed it wasn't available for the federal election out of shear laziness - so easy and quick.
     
  13. Perthguy

    Perthguy Well-Known Member

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    I'm probably ignorant but I'm not concerned about my privacy. Last time it was an option to retain my details and release in the future, I ticked "yes". I don't have a problem with it.
     
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  14. Perthguy

    Perthguy Well-Known Member

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    I don't really understand why this is so complex. If you can lodge a tax return online through a secure portal, why not vote through the same portal? I don't have any objection to paper votes for people who don't want to vote online but for those who do, it could be made an option.
     
  15. mcarthur

    mcarthur Well-Known Member

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    Because for tax they know who you are - you have a single TFN that "identifies" you. For online voting, there would need to be some way to do the same for people who don't have a TFN - and there are lots of them. Medicare card isn't the answer since you can be a valid voter but not eligible for Medicare.

    The fact that voters in the booth just have their name ruled off on paper on the day may look as though online could be made easier and simpler, but in the paper version if you want to commit wide-scale fraud you have to actually line up a *lot*, spending heaps of time and moving between booths (as the invigilator will notice you if you come back that many times) to effect the election. In the electronic world, it's relatively a lot lot easier to fraudulently change thousands of votes, if not more. So the security actually has to be a lot better - need to really be sure who you are before voting. And Australians have consistently decided against an national identity instrument (card/number). If you're interested, have a read at the senate committee that has looked at electronic voting for about the past 5 elections - each time they have decided it simply isn't worth it.

    Regarding using the same "portal", I'm sure you wouldn't want you tax affairs connected with how you vote. That way dictatorship lies, even if not necessarily immediately. So ATO specifically can't run the "portal". The AEC can of course, but the ATO portal is entirely different to one for voting - different reasons to exist, different technologies to do it, etc. Oh, and for those talking about how the cloud and Amazon and everyone can quickly scale their systems to adapt to demand on the fly, that all wonderful if you are happy for australian voting information to be held on computer systems run in USA...nuff said.
     
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  16. bob shovel

    bob shovel Well-Known Member

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    Yeah i don't get it either. I think the abs is the least of your worries
     
  17. Ed Barton

    Ed Barton Well-Known Member

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    I just opened my letter from the ABS. There's nothing on it about completing it earlier. How could I complete it early when I don't know where I will be? I could be passed out in the Valley, at some random's house or in the lock up.
     
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  18. Nemo30

    Nemo30 Well-Known Member

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    Im into genealogy. So.much information is available through census data. Make sure you tick the box to release the information in the future.
     
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  19. bob shovel

    bob shovel Well-Known Member

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    That's sounds like a dream:D i hope I'm as lucky as you

    Jump on the website you can start entering your census number
    Census 2016 home page - Australian Bureau of Statistics
     
  20. Perthguy

    Perthguy Well-Known Member

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    All true. I was thinking of MyGov, not voting through the ATO part on MyGov... that really would not make sense as you point out! Yeah, so MyGov is a portal and Medicare is one service in that portal. ATO is another service in the portal. AEC could be another service in the portal.

    In the electronic world, it's only a lot easier to fraudulently change thousands of votes of you can access them. Many Australians have access to MyGov, so that would be a starting point. Verify identity of as many people who wish to volunteer and the rest will have to vote manually for now. The other option is to set up voting booths with electronic voting. That would be a lot more straightforward than online. For example, your terminals are not connected to the internet (so can't be hacked remotely), store multiple copies of each vote on hot swap hard drives and the process managed from there.

    Was the last election pre-MyGov? I don't recall. MyGov was just a suggestion though. I would be more comfortable with off-line electronic.

    More like China or Russia... no thanks! :eek:

    Example Electronic offline:-
    1. at each polling booth, each vote is stored three times on separate hard drives
    2. at the end of the day, each hard drive physically taken to three separate collection centres accompanied by AEC staff and scrutineers
    3. votes uploaded to a server that verifies the votes match
    4. if the votes match the votes are counted
    5. if the votes don't match the data is investigated
     
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