Privacy
The Census and Statistics Act 1905 and Privacy Act 1988 guarantee that no personally-identifiable information is released from the ABS to other government organisations, or the public. However the ABS makes confidentialised census data available to researchers, who must make various legal commitments before being given access.
In the 1970s there was public debate about privacy and the census. In 1979 the Law Reform Commission reported on Privacy and the Census. One of the key elements under question was the inclusion of names. It was found that excluding names reduced the accuracy of the data; individuals were more likely to leave questions blank and post-enumeration surveys would not be possible.
Read more about this topic: Census In Australia
Famous quotes containing the word privacy:
“Any moral philosophy is exceedingly rare. This of Menu addresses our privacy more than most. It is a more private and familiar, and at the same time, a more public and universal word, than is spoken in parlor or pulpit nowadays.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All violations of essential privacy are brutalizing.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“Far from being the basis of the good society, the family, with its narrow privacy and tawdry secrets, is the source of all our discontents.”
—Sir Edmund Leach (20th century)