#census2016

The coverage was mostly just news sites putting up twitter posts surrounded by ????????what are you doing?, and I still can't get over it. So here are some snapshots of the experience in tribute. (except without all the selfies due to longness)

“Based on tweets in my feed, Wayne R. Smith, Chief Statistician of Canada, is Canada’s Beyonce.”

(Note: It wasn’t the traffic level in itself that overloaded the site, although the site wouldn't have crashed without the traffic either, so.)

Sources: (most of which are funnier than this post)

huff. post | buzzfeed  | cbc | globe&mail | globe&mail again | huff. post returns | yahoo | twitter search i just did

The census has been apart of Australia’s history since 1911 and is completed every 5 years, this year the census was completed on the 9th of August (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016). However, this year was a bit different from the others, as the census was completed online for the first time in the 100 years the census has been taking place. With a large amount of pressure on the Australian Bureau of Statistics, many believing the server would not be able to handle the large number of people connecting to the website, however the ABS promised that everything would be safe and run smoothly. 

During our time off during Week 3, the Census date came around. This year the Census moved to being almost completely online. Instead of large paper forms being sent out to each household, a small letter containing a specific log in number for your household arrived with detail on how to get online and complete your census. 

Typically, as is normal with anything the government tries to accomplish in this country, the 2016 Census brought about harsh criticism. The backlash began around it’s new privacy policy. Changes were being made to how long the data from the Census would be kept and also it is now compulsory to submit your name when filling out the form (Allen, 2016). Obviously, concerns like this should be taken seriously and many Australian’s used their favourite Social Media platform, Facebook, to express these concerns. 

The world has become a scary place, online threats like being hacked and having your identity stolen are very real realities for a lot of internet users. Cyber safety must be taken seriously and it was interesting to see so many Australians distrusting of the Australian Bureau of Statistics- not because the Bureau was going to leak the information or give it away to anyone that wants it, but more so, people were asking questions about whether the servers could be hacked from the outside.

This conversation becomes even more interesting when we think about how many marketers have servers filled with our information. In the midst of all of the controversy it seemed as if many Australians were not going to give over their information to a government agency whose sole purpose is to find ways to build on our infrastructure but very interested in giving over any kind of information to receive a free voucher from their favourite store.

Government advertisement for the Census was on our TV screens four months before its release on the 9th of August, making sure we were sitting at our computers that night to complete it. It had been re-vamped! It was now on the internet instead of on a sheet of paper! Come the 9th and only just over 2.3 million households were able to complete it before the site was completely shut down (Dudley-Nicholson, 2016). This in itself was only the first of the let-downs. To be quite honest, I thought it shut down the same reason why Kylie Jenner’s website shuts down every time she has a restock; because the Government just couldn’t create a strong enough website to allow the entire Australian population to complete their Census. But it was a lot more than that.

Turns out it was hackers, trying to mess with the Government, and I feel this only made the situation worse. The uproar on privacy was enormous, with people anxious as to whether their information had been collected by HACKERS! This only brought about the topic of privacy on to a national level, and it makes you question whether such an important collection of data should be online, for unauthorised people to take their pick at. We still vote for our Prime Minister on a piece of paper, so why did the Census change? Whilst the Australian Bureau of Statistics state on their website, “The ABS never has and never will release identifiable Census data,” that certainly doesn’t stop people from trying to retrieve it (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016). I would definitely put it up there as one of the Governments biggest flops in their attempt to be technologically advanced.

To be honest, I don’t think it was quite time to make that jump. The thought was nice, but in saying that it’s mostly the younger generations that are all hip with technology, and who in the household sits down and does the Census? I’ll leave that unfortunate job to Mum and Dad! Not all generations are as savvy with technology as my generation, especially the older generations. My grandparents who are surrounded by grandchildren that can do anything on a computer still struggle with their iCloud accounts. This then leads to the third let-down of this years Census. After the website malfunction, the Census was back up and running two days later. So far, there have been over 3 million households that have completed the Census, (Uhlmann, 2016). It’s now been a week later, and only just over HALF of the Australian households have completed it, meaning there isn’t a lot of data for the ABS to go off, (Dudley-Nicholson, 2016). You can already tell they’re a little worried, because Government advertisement is back up again pressing people to complete the Census, with the subtle inclusion of, “Remember, your data is safe,” making a sneaky appearance in all of them.  The biggest issue is people cannot be bothered. Like everything in technology, if you don’t get it right away, people lose interest. Or as my Granddad so wonderfully put it, “I sat down and I tried and it failed. So stuff it.” This just means the ABS have another 5 years to improve their systems for next time, and I wish them luck.

Yes you might be thinking, ‘Phoebe, that doesn’t make any sense at all?’ but I caught your attention and got you thinking so THANK YOU! 

This week has marked 2 of the biggest events on the 2016 Australian Calendar: the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and the 2016 Australian Census.  Both of these things would not be possible in the modern world without the evolution of technology.  The Olympics has reached the pinnacle of human sporting events due to the amount of people it reaches across the world, the amount of athletes that compete, and how highly us as humans hold this event.  However, the article for this weeks reading also got me thinking about the future of the Olympics and where the future evolution of technology could take it.  I believe that the idea of ‘wearable’ technology is an asset to communication, the ease of communication and being able to communicate across distance more easily, however I think that the Olympics are so prestigious because they showcase the best of the human ability and I think that future technology should be used to showcase these abilities, instead of enhancing them.  The video from USA Today speaks about how ‘super-athletes’ would be created by genetic enhancement, and I believe this is unethical, but very much possible.

On a very different note, the Australian Census took place on the 9th of August, well at least it tried to happen. Very quickly the site was ‘shut down’ due to ‘a series of hacking attacks....which were a deliberate attempt to sabotage the national survey (ABS, 2016). This made Australians question the privacy of their information and sparked a social media uproar, with #CensusFail trending on Facebook and Twitter.