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Census ‘suffragette’ protest in Parliament!

By Matt Peterkin

Census168Last night I went out for dinner in central London with some friends. One of the topics of conversation was what to do about the Census. None of us like it, but we didn’t want to break the law by refusing to do it either. For all of us it was a huge dilemma.

As I trudged down Whitehall to get my bus home an idea dawned on me. The census requires you to list wherever you slept on Sunday night as your address, even if you don’t live there. So why don’t I follow the lead of the famous suffragette Emily Davidson and sleep in the Houses of Parliament?

I have a pass for the building so it wouldn’t be too hard to enter the building, plus I wanted to catch up on some work before Monday. So I walked up to the gate, told the Police Officer I was going to do some late night work (which was true), and I was in. After sending some emails I bedded down in my arm chair and began my ‘slumber protest’.

By now you’re probably asking two questions: what does he have against the census and why choose to sleep in parliament. In the case of the former, Big Brother Watch has spent a huge amount of time explaining why the census is a bad idea so I don’t plan to add too much to that. But I will say it costs £500m to give away private information to an unspecified group of government officials. Not a good idea in my book.On the specifics of sleeping in Parliament, firstly it isn’t my home and the Office of National Statistics cannot do any analysis on my living conditions, because will say nothing about it. If I have to fill out the form, and I will try to avoid it, I want the information to be honest but also meaningless. No government official can ascertain anything useful about my residential status from this act.

Secondly in the days of Emily Davidson the biggest issue facing us was the lack of rights for women. She wanted to prove that it was easier to live in Parliament than it was to get elected to it. I can’t pretend my motives are so worthy but I can say that I think the overbearing state – of whichever party – is a huge risk to this country and must be stopped. If someone is so worried about the intrusive state that they sleep in Parliament on Census night then we can all see how serious this issue has become.

The big question now is what happens next. The answer is that I have no idea. Legally speaking I am now obliged to fill out the census listing my address as “House of Commons, Palace of Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA” but I’m still trying to avoid doing the form at all. I suppose some people will be annoyed that I did it, however most will dismiss this for what it is: a token gesture. I may get into trouble, though I doubt any senior officers of the house really care what I do.

My hope is that some people reading this sit down and think about whether we should ever repeat this process. Whatever you think of me I just don’t want to spend £500m so that someone in Whitehall can garner titillation from the personal data of every man, woman and child in the country. If sleeping in Parliament helps to derail that process then it was worth the aches and pains that resulted.

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Big Brother Watch Posted in Census, Privacy
  • Colin Camel

    You’re clearly a moron!
    The questionnaire says you have to fill it in “wherever you usually live”, not where you are on Census night!
    That rule changed for the 2001 Census.

  • http://www.galtsgulch.com John Galt

    Good for you Matt. I objected to the Census so much that it was a factor for me leaving the UK in 2009.
    Currently Germany doesn’t operate a census.

  • Colin Camel

    Census Day in Germany is 9th May 2011!
    The questions are very similar to ours (arguably more intrusive) and just as legally mandatory…

  • No one

    Better a census that the government taking the data from Experian or large scale database holders. Here you can at least ensure the data provided is accurate and you also know precisely what is being asked about you. In truth if you can’t find an issue more significant than the census to worry about then I suggest you take up knitting. Oh, and in what is either intended irony or the pot calling the kettle black your form asks for my email address. Who’s playing big brother now?

  • ohno

    Why are people so quick to rubbish what is clearly an extremely important issue to others? If you are happy to provide the world with all your very personal data then that is fine. For those of us who do not believe in giving all our data to what we see as a very intrusive census that doesn’t mean we are lesser beings. I thought discrimination was supposed to be not PC these days.
    It is good to know that others out there also believe the census to be way too intrusive and they don’t want to fill it in.

  • Colin Camel

    Which bit is intrusive? Point me to something that won’t be really useful in informing the allocation on money to local areas or the development of policy to help specific population groups.
    Parliament agrees the Census questionnaire, only on the basis of a clear and clearly evidenced requirement for every single piece of information collected.

  • No One

    I may be wrong, but as far as I can tell the two arguments against the census are cost and intrusion. On the first, I doubt government money has ever been better spent. Ask yourself, would you spend the money on a census and know where to build a school, or just build the school blindly and hope that there are some children nearby. On the second, think of all the data you have give out in your daily life. Not the obvious bits, but your till roll at the supermarket, debit and credit card usage, cash withdrawal from cash machines and banks. Car insurance, home insurance, mortgage forms, bank details, internet service provider sign up. Search data from that ISP, sites you’ve visited, email data, videos you’ve watched online. The list is truly staggering. All that data, to buy food at a supermarket, have a car, a mortgage and the ability to find and post a comment on this website. And people are bothered about 40 questions? If by the way, as suggested by Phillip Johnson the data is collected from “linked databases” isn’t that a far greater issue? You would decisions in government were made based on Tesco Clubcard holders than a document that requires the scrutiny of democratically elected officials. The choice isn’t a particularly difficult one when viewed from that angle.

  • peter levick

    ‘Parliament agrees the Census questionnaire only on the basis of a clear and clearly evidenced requirement for every single piece of information collected.’
    The fairies who live at the bottom of my garden don’t agree…

  • Matt Peterkin

    Actually I don’t have a permanent base and as such wherever I sleep on Census night is still classed as my home.

  • David C

    It’s interesting that there is such a divergence of views about the intrusiveness of the census. If you feel the government’s on your side – no problem. If you feel, as I do, that the government is the local bully boy which stops you doing what you want to do, demands access to your property, and is generally completely out of control, you hate the census with a vengeance, just as you would if someone you loathe had a legal right to come to your home and get answers to all sorts of intrusive questions.

  • No one

    If that is your view then start a party and get elected. A party that demands no census and once elected will end all government so it can’t play the bully boy. But then there would be anarchy, a state well know for its protection of civil liberties.

  • Stuart

    Good display of idiocy. All it means that your local council will get less funding in the next allocating round.

  • Colin Camel

    “The fairies who live at the bottom of my garden don’t agree…”
    Can I assume that they are choosing to disagree after reading the extensive suite of documentation prepared by the ONS to support the final questionnaire, which is available on its website, or are they just lazily reacting to absurd scare stories in the press?

  • Richard Craven

    @colin camel
    “Which bit is intrusive? Point me to something that won’t be really useful in informing the allocation on money to local areas or the development of policy to help specific population groups”
    I’m afraid your reasoning here is rather specious. You appear to equate the Census being useful with its being intrusive. This is a false equivocation. I accept that civil servants may find the Census useful, and useful for purposes which are proper and not nefarious. Nevertheless, I still think that people should not be coerced into imparting confidential information to the authorities. The authorities just have to get on with governance without the Census, even though doing so is administratively inconvenient. They manage this in other countries, and they can manage it here.

  • Richard Craven

    @stuart
    “Good display of idiocy. All it means that your local council will get less funding in the next allocating round.”
    Your comment implies that everyone should complete a Census for selfish reasons, i.e. to ensure that their local council receives a larger share of the finite funding doled out by the Treasury.
    According to this logic, altruists living in areas with high levels of Census-compliance ought not to complete a Census, thereby ensuring that those living in areas with low levels of Census-compliance get a better share of central funding.
    Or do you think that altruists are idiots as well?

  • Richard Craven

    @noone
    “If that is your view then start a party and get elected. A party that demands no census and once elected will end all government so it can’t play the bully boy. But then there would be anarchy, a state well know for its protection of civil liberties.”
    I agree that anarchy tends to be very bad at preserving the freedoms we naturally insist upon. But you need to calm down. There is no need for hyperbole. Getting rid of the Census will generate a certain amount of administrative inconvenience, some of which will be modestly regrettable. But it will not generate anarchy.

  • Colin Camel

    ” I accept that civil servants may find the Census useful, and useful for purposes which are proper and not nefarious. ”
    It’s used to plan schools, allocate funding for hosiptals, care homes, council houses and translation services, to justify the building of roads or subsidising non-car transport…
    The list is long, and I don’t understand why the Government wanting the information to make sure it spends our money better can be seen as nefarious. Statistics based on our responses are used – nobody’s individual data from any Census has EVER been used/shared with the police/US Government/anyone else, because that’s not the point of it…

  • Richard Craven

    @colin camel
    Read my post properly. I accepted that the government’s purposes in holding a Census are NOT nefarious. To repeat myself, I think that privacy considerations outweigh the administrative inconvenience of abandoning the Census.

  • No one

    I didn’t suggest getting rid of the census would create anarchy. I suggested that if David C believed the government was the local bully boy he should start a part that would end government. That would lead to Anarchy. I suggest you take your own advice and read people’s posts properly.

  • Richard Craven

    Touche! At least, if you don’t think that getting rid of the Census would create anarchy, you can’t have enormously pressing reasons for retaining it. That’s good to know.
    I also agree about the inadvisability of dispensing with government. I just want to restrain its access to our private lives.

  • ohno

    The argument for census data to be used for planning purposes for services and schools and so on does not stand up simply because people can move house, jobs and areas and so on. Those without kids now might decide to have kids shortly and so on. Those without kids might move out and people with lots of kids might move into an area. Therefore using census data from 2011 to plan services for say, 2020 would not be accurate. Also the assumption appears to be that if everyone completed the census the data would be accurate – that does not allow for those who accidentally or deliberately make mistakes.
    @colin camel – do you know absolutely that nobody’s individual census data from any census has ever been used/shared with the police/US Government/anyone else (why the US government – this is the UK census we are debating or have I got it wrong?)? There is no guarantee that this will not happen and even if there was can we trust government departments to protect our data – bearing in mind all the recent breaches of data protection.

  • Nick

    Good display of idiocy. All it means that your local council will get less funding in the next allocating round.
    ==============
    Is it?
    Reduced numbers mean less spending. Less spending since we’ve got such massive debts is a good thing.

  • Richard Craven

    @colin camel
    Actually, Census data has been shared with the Security Services past, as is plain from the following passage from page 48 of ‘The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5′ by Christopher Andrew, Alan Lane, 2009.
    =====
    “By December 1913 the Counter-Espionage Bureau’s secret Register of Aliens was almost complete except for London (where about half the aliens lived), and Kell wrote to the Home Office ‘to express our gratitude to the Chief Constables and their Superintendents for the excellent work they have done for us during the last three years’ and to request that their local registers ‘be kept under constant current revision’. Kell’s original plan to use police forces around the country to compile a secret register of all aliens from probable enemy powers (chiefly Germany) had proved difficult to complete because of the scale of the exercise and the limited resources of both Bureau and police. The Home Office had also insisted that no alien was to be asked any question ‘of an inquisitorial nature’. The results of the National Census of 1911, however, made it possible to complete a more limited and focused Register of Aliens. During 1913 the Census returns were used to record the particulars of all male aliens aged eighteen and above of eight nationalities (in particular Germans and Austrians) living in areas which would be closed to aliens in wartime. Information on aliens taken from the Census was then circulated for checking to chief constables, who were also asked to take note of those on the Register in their areas.
    Kell’s Registry entered the aliens information received from the 1911 Census and chief constables on what were known as ‘Special Cards’: the beginning of Ml5′s card index. The Registry was among the most up to date of its era.”

  • Richard Craven

    @nick
    “Reduced numbers mean less spending. Less spending since we’ve got such massive debts is a good thing.”
    I’m afraid you’ve got this wrong. The levels of compliance/non-compliance with the Census vary across different council areas. This affects the allocation of funds from the central pot. The size of the central pot itself is unaffected.
    However, this is not to say that people ought to complete the Census in order to ensure that their council is fully funded. High rates of compliance in some councils will lead to reduced funding for councils with low rates of compliance. Two ways of correcting such imbalances are:-
    (1) Persuading those in low-compliance areas to comply;
    (2) Persuading those in high-compliance areas not to comply.

  • Purlieu

    “Which bit is intrusive? Point me to something that won’t be really useful in informing the allocation on money to local areas or the development of policy to help specific population groups”
    The name, address, and postcode of my employer.

  • zorro

    The census data is not confidential and can easily be shared under Section 39 of the relevant Registration Act 2007 (I think.
    I don’t think for a second that any important decisions should be based on the census but on more independently verifiable data.
    ‘No-one’ mentions Tesco…Did you know that Tesco’s conducted research into the size of the UK population by comparing what we eat and excrete with comparable countries…..?…..and the size of the UK population was 77 million which tells you all you need to know about the accuracy of the 2001 census. It is wasted government spending on an epic scale….
    The only people salivating at the prospect of the census are council officials desperate to get their hands on more public money to waste and spend on inflated CEO salaries.
    zorro

  • zorro

    I seem to recall that Lockheed (aircraft manufacturer – American) is involved in this survey….just saying
    zorro

  • Peter Levick

    ‘The fairies who live etc.etc.
    Careful my friend. If you call them lazy they might cast a spell and turn you into a rational human being… something the government can’t control?

  • billy balls

    Well, I’m not filling the form in, fuck it.

  • Maggie

    The 2011 Census asked for Date of Birth whereas every other Census since 1801 has just asked for Age. Date of Birth allied to all the other information they asked for can be misused by the sort of criminals who drew up the Census. Everyone would have been well advised to just make something up to fill in the boxes.

  • Maggie

    “It’s used to plan schools, allocate funding for hospitals, care homes, council houses…..”
    Fine. Then no-one who is not on the Census should receive schooling, NHS care or council housing. Sounds like a good idea and will ensure that everyone fills it in.

  • Richard Craven

    @maggie
    Rotten idea. Ordinary decent taxpayers
    should not be denied the benefits of the civil society to which they are contributing, just because they object to divulging the minutiae of their private lives to government snoopers.

  • http://ciarang.com Ciaran

    @maggie
    That’s absolutely fine by me, on the condition that I am also no longer forced to pay for those things.

  • RM

    Lockheed is also a very large arms manufacturer, they supervised the interrogation of prisoners at Abu Graib & Guantanamo Bay (remember those pictures?)and, as an American company under the terms of the Patriot Act have to hand over any data they store – for whatever reason – to the US government – not forgetting the recent law changes in Brussels (which our government has remained suitably reticent about) which allows the EU access to UK cansus data. Our census data is safe? And protected? Alas, these are fallacies believed only by those who also believe in the Tooth Fairy.