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In Canada, the prime minister did a similar thing, announcing soon before the census's administration that the long version (administered to a random subset) wo
by leot 14y ago
In Canada, the prime minister did a similar thing, announcing soon before the census's administration that the long version (administered to a random subset) would no longer be mandatory due to "privacy-related complaints".
The decision prompted the resignation of the Chief Statistician, a man appointed to the position by the prime minister. The people in charge of the decision equivocated repeatedly over how and why it happened: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_2011_Census#Voluntary_long-form_survey_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_2011_Census#Voluntary_lo...
A cynic would say that the Prime Minister advocated for the position in order to take advantage of the resulting lack of data and potential for "truthiness", and only used liberty and privacy arguments as political cover.
- morsch 14y agoWe had a random long version census in 2011 in Germany, too. It was mandatory. There was a moderately large political debate about the privacy implications. A very small number of people refused to participate, under a threat of penalty that, afaik, was never acted upon. I wasn't asked. The last real census (in the western part, anyway) before 2011 was in 1987. It was originally planned for 1983, but had to be postponed and modified aftr it was met with huge, widespread resistance. This culminated in the German supreme (ie. constitution,al) court issueing a landmark ruling on privacy rights, establishing informational self-determination as a fundamental right.