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:
“The East is the hearthside of America. Like any home, therefore, it has the defects of its virtues. Because it is a long-lived-in house, it bursts its seams, is inconvenient, needs constant refurbishing. And some of the family resources have been spent. To attain the privacy that grown-up people find so desirable, Easterners live a harder life than people elsewhere. Today it is we and not the frontiersman who must be rugged to survive.”
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)
“... privacy is ... connected to a politics of domination.”
—bell hooks (b. 1955)
“The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control.”
—Ruth Bader Ginsberg (b. 1933)