Non-motoring > Census information secret for 100 years... Miscellaneous
Thread Author: SteelSpark Replies: 15
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 12:54 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - SteelSpark
...or maybe not

tinyurl.com/3kdf5ct

Still little more than a rumour at the moment, but if it does turn out to be true, it will be highly embarrassing, and certainly ammunition for those that say we should be very wary of more and more personal data being captured.
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 13:07 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - captain chaos
Security illiterate government
I like it
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 13:11 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - Stuartli
There didn't seem to me, IIRC, to be any information required when filling in the census form that wasn't already in the public domain.
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 13:54 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - SteelSpark
>> There didn't seem to me, IIRC, to be any information required when filling in the
>> census form that wasn't already in the public domain.

Well, it is probably in a number of different systems, but not really in the public domain. Some of it would certainly not be easy for an individual to find. I don't think you could easily find the names and dates of birth of all of your neighbours, their marital status, where they lived previously, their employment status, the name of their employer and their job title.

You could get a lot of it from doing a credit check on them, but that requires permission and leaves a footprint, you could also get some (but not all) from the likes of 192.com



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New Tue 21 Jun 11 13:59 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - Cliff Pope
>> already in the public domain.
>>

Probably true, but I think it is the collating of that information and the uses it might be put to that makes people a bit uneasy.


After all, observing warships and troop movements and passing the information on to a hostile foreign government might only be noting what was already in the public domain, but it would still be spying and ultimately punishable by death.
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 14:07 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - SteelSpark
>> but it would still be spying and ultimately punishable by death.

Not in the UK though. There is no longer any crime that you can be executed for here.
Last edited by: SteelSpark on Tue 21 Jun 11 at 14:09
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 15:10 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - Slidingpillar
Weee! Think I'll go and cause arson in a naval dockyard!
It's a joke, by the way if you are a Stasi style informant
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 15:28 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - SteelSpark
>> Weee! Think I'll go and cause arson in a naval dockyard!

Do we have any left ? :)

Of course, plenty of people often do quote that one as still being punishable by death, even though it was repealed 40 years ago.
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 15:51 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - Iffy
...Of course, plenty of people often do quote that one as still being punishable by death, even though it was repealed 40 years ago...

Suicide used to be illegal, too.

I say hanging's too good for them.

And it probably was.

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New Tue 21 Jun 11 15:26 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - Cliff Pope
I know, but people were executed in the world wars for doing nothing more than collecting information that was already in the public domain.

It's an extreme example I realise, I was just illustrating that it is sometimes the uses and ready availability of information that causes concern, rather than it's theoretically already being public.
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 15:32 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - SteelSpark
>> It's an extreme example I realise, I was just illustrating that it is sometimes the
>> uses and ready availability of information that causes concern, rather than it's theoretically already being public.

Yeah. Especially when there are no checks and measures, which would be the case if the Census information really has been hacked.
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 15:48 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - Old Navy
DVLA sells your info, most companies buy and sell it too. I doubt if the census is news to many organisations.
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 16:00 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - Iffy
I see the hackers, who may or may not have hacked anything, are claiming they will post the census info online.

Am I the only one who is curious to know what my form looks like from the 'other side'?
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 16:32 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - Roger.
A lot of the information required on the census was a gross invasion of privacy.
We really do live in a "1984" society: spied on by CCTV, tracked by ANPR and mobile phones: spied on by wheelie-bin stasi and ruled by unelected bureaucrats from Brussels, all fortified by the "Uman Rites, innit" act.
Bah Humbug!
Orwell was only wrong in his dates.
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 16:35 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - Alanovich
Well, at least rationing's over, Roger. Or did that make life better too?
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New Tue 21 Jun 11 18:00 
 Census information secret for 100 years... - CGNorwich
You wouldn't have been happy with the following 1891 census question then;


Whether
deaf and dumb
blind
lunatic, imbecile or idiot
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