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The Census

Census If you agree with us about the intrusive Census, which we've berated both here and elsewhere (and on Radio 4), then you might be interested in signing up to this excellent campaign over at Facebook – the Mind Your Own Campaign believes that

it's time to stop the gimmicks of deflection (Jedi, Humanist, Christian or whatever) in the Census 2011 religion question, and simply tell the Government to "Mind Your Own *%$#@!! Business".

Which must be right.

By Alex Deane

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Big Brother Watch Posted in Privacy
  • J

    Yes the Government should mind its own fucking business. I wonder if we can all read what our MP’s have put on there census or will it be one rule for them and another for jo in the street.

  • http://www.tolpuddlemartyr.blogspot.com tolpuddlemartyr

    They want to know what we’re doing because they are afraid, then they spend their time trying to make us afraid in order to keep control over us. We might as well live under the Stasi this country just goes from bad to worse! TpM.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p01156f342111970c Archbishop Cranmer

    ‘C’ for Christian and ‘M’ for Muslim (a yellow star for Jew?). You only have to look at Egypt to see where government databases on religious adherence will lead.
    http://bit.ly/dQTqbi

  • David Cooper

    Given that “Jedi” previously served the dual purpose of completing the question and hoisting two fingers to the snoopers in the process, how about a campaign to answer the question “Myobb” – no, not a new faith, just an acronym and one that runs off the tongue more easily that “Myofb”?

  • Richard Craven

    If you’re going to tell the authorities to mind their own business in relation to the question on religion, why not take your courage in hand and simply refuse to complete the census at all? I always do, and no harm ever comes of it, despite the threats.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p01156f342111970c Archbishop Cranmer

    @David Cooper: To answer ‘Jedi’ is to consent to being asked; to leave it blank is to consent being asked and passively demurring; only by ticking ‘Other’ and inserting ‘Mind Your Own’ is a protest made against the question being asked.
    @Richard Craven: The short answer is that such action would be illegal. One must ‘render unto Caesar’, but render as little as is legally possible.

  • Richard Craven

    @j
    “Yes the Government should mind its own fucking business. I wonder if we can all read what our MP’s have put on there census or will it be one rule for them and another for jo in the street.”
    No. We can’t read what MP’s put on their (not “their”) census forms. Nor can they read what we put on ours. It is exactly the same rule for us and for them, and it is reasonable to suppose that many of them feel exactly as you and I do about the census. In fact, I really think that you ought to get your facts right before you post. By putting your ignorance on display, you provide the authorities with the pretext to tar everyone who opposes the census with the same brush.

  • Richard Craven

    Sorry, “their” not “there”!

  • Richard Craven

    @Cranmer
    I agree with the claim, implicit in your response to me, that by and large one should obey the law. However, sometimes it is right and proper to break the law, and I think that the census is one of these occasions. We simply can’t allow the authorities to sift through the minutiae of our lives like this.

  • Richard Craven

    @Cranmer
    To continue with your metaphor, I agree that we should render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. However, sometimes as on this occasion he asks for more than his due, and has to be given the bum’s rush.

  • John

    I’m more than willing to voice my concern over the state’s intrusions into my private life. But on Facebook?!

  • Richard

    @John
    Excellent point. I quit Facebook a year ago, and have never regretted doing so.

  • Richard Craven

    @tolpuddle
    “They want to know what we’re doing because they are afraid, then they spend their time trying to make us afraid in order to keep control over us. We might as well live under the Stasi this country just goes from bad to worse! TpM.”
    Not true! Take them at their word. They are not doing this because they are afraid, or in order to make us afraid. The census is going ahead, because
    (a) they think – not unreasonably – that knowing the facts facilitates the allocation of resources.
    (b) the census has been happening every decade – except in 1941 – for about 150yrs, and institutional inertia is difficult to shift.
    This doesn’t mean that we should acquiesce in this intrusion on our privacy. We shouldn’t. What it does mean is that we do ourselves no credit in sustaining our side of the debate by means of paranoia and specious argument.

  • robthered

    As one who does not use, nor is ever likely to want my data manipulated by Facebook, there needs to be an anti census site to post objections to

  • http://profile.typepad.com/alexdeane Alex Deane

    Well of course, this page here isn’t a bad place to start… :)

  • Slacker

    TBH there’ll be so many people telling porkies on the form (myself included) that the data won’t be worth a toss anyway.

  • ohno

    And it is not just Census questions we have to say no to. Enquiring about a ‘pay as you go’ phone this week led to me being informed in the store that I would need to provide my name and address and the top up if paid in cash would be twice what I need to buy if I pay by card – the reason being they want everyone to pay by card so they can be tracked!!!!!!!! I have a ‘pay as you go’ phone because I prefer to be anonymous (as far as that is possible in today’s world) and there is no way I would buy a phone from a company that is happy to take personal data for the purpose of tracking their customers. The argument put forward was that tracking people prevents fraud – oh does it?????
    Census – having been the victim of data breaches I find the Census far too intrusive and it is distressing me already just thinking about it.

  • Richard Craven

    @ohno
    That sounds strange and worrying. Where were you trying to buy the phone? I bought a PAYG phone in Tescos a few months ago for cash, no questions asked.

  • ohno

    @Richard Craven It was Carphone Warehouse – I have a PAYG phone already and so I was just looking at getting a new one and I have not been asked for details before – I have not been in Carphone Warehouse before so not sure if this is a new thing with them.

  • Richard Craven

    @ohno
    @alexdeane
    I wonder whether it is going to become quite general for mobile phone retailers to require customers to provide personal details when buying PAYG phones. Perhaps this is a subject worthy of a BBW investigation in its own right. The first thing to do might be to contact Carphone Warehouse, in order to ask them whether ohno’s experience reflects company policy.

  • Richard Craven

    Returning to the main topic of the thread:-
    I can actually see the rationale for having a census. A roughly accurate snapshot of everyones’ lives does facilitate planning and investment at both national and local levels.
    Moreover, I think we have to accept that the typical census worker is a decent individual doing what he or she sincerely considers to be good work. For this reason, I think that census workers ought to be treated with dignity and respect.
    Nevertheless, we should never allow ourselves to be coerced into providing the authorities with detailed information about our private lives. On the practical level, there will always be the opportunity for this information to be misused, or to fall into the wrong hands. And from from the point of view of principle, I can’t help feeling that I have some kind of inalienable right to a private life, which it is almost my moral duty to defend.

  • ohno

    Doesn’t the human rights act say we have a right to privacy? Is it that we have a right to privacy unless the government wants to know?

  • Slacker

    “I have not been in Carphone Warehouse before so not sure if this is a new thing with them. ”
    Carphone Warehouse are scum. They’ve been doing this for a while now. I simply walked out and bought one from Asda instead, it was even a couple of quid cheaper!

  • Richard Craven

    @ohno
    I’m no expert, but my understanding is that the right to privacy codified in the HRA is subject to some kind of proportionality criterion; which makes it likely that privacy considerations will quite often be trumped by other expediencies.

  • Richard Craven

    I guess the govt’s legal argument then would be that the census is one of those expediencies which trumps the right to privacy.
    However, I don’t think that the strength of the govt’s legal case is of much practical significance at all. If the govt. proceeded with the prosecution of all the 2 million or so expected refuseniks, the courts would clearly collapse under the strain.

  • http://www.nimh.nih.gov/ Dr. Hannibal Lector

    For myself, I will be going to Waitrose for some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
    I’ll leave them in the porch window after Census night to see if anyone fancies ‘testing’ me again.

  • Richard Craven

    Slight lapse in taste there, think you not?

  • http://www.newinformer.co.uk Chris Henniker

    With the census being contracted out to Lockheen Martin, an American arms company, I even wonder why the peace movement hasn’t publically called for a boycott of it. If this happened when Cruise missiles were in this country, this would have lead to large scale civil disobedience. The political fallout would have been great.

  • http://greececharter.co.uk Clair

    The Census is a joke, the government know everything about us all already. You should be allowed to put whatever you want under the religion question, but most people will probably just answer truthfully.

  • Iain

    I have read a claim that in the census being conducted this year, the letter of the law only requires that you disclose name, address and date of birth of all occupants. You can legally ignore the rest (even though religion is the only question identified as voluntary) even though they will contact you to complete the unanswered info. Can anyone with legal knowledge confirm or debunk this?