{"id":40725,"date":"2023-10-20T15:09:38","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/abs-will-do-more-proactive-testing-for-future-census-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:09:38","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:09:38","slug":"abs-will-do-more-proactive-testing-for-future-census-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/abs-will-do-more-proactive-testing-for-future-census-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"ABS will do “more proactive” testing for future census – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"census<\/div>\n

The federal government has rejected calls to\u00a0give people the choice to withhold their name from the census, arguing that mandatory provision of names is necessary for a \u201chigh quality\u201d census and is consistent with international practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

It also declined\u00a0a recommendation \u2014 like the previous one, made by Xenophon Team Senators Nick Xenophon and Stirling Griff in a Senate committee report \u2014 that the government seek legislative\u00a0approval to link census data to other administrative datasets, arguing that current legislation offers \u201cextremely strong protections\u201d around the use of data.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s response<\/a> to the Senate Economic References Committee report<\/a>\u00a02016 Census: issues of trust\u00a0<\/em>highlights that many of the committee\u2019s recommendations regarding privacy\u00a0are already being addressed\u00a0by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, following the earlier MacGibbon Review<\/a> of last year\u2019s census.<\/p>\n

In the wake of\u00a0the ABS system suffering a distributed denial of service attack on census night, the agency will take a \u201cmore proactive role\u201d in testing the resilience of the online census prior to its\u00a0return in 2021, according to the response released on Monday.<\/p>\n

With regard to\u00a0the ABS\u2019s efforts at community consultation in the lead up to the census \u2014 a major point of public criticism \u2014 the government agreed to implement\u00a0earlier, more transparent engagement.<\/p>\n

The committee recommended that all future privacy impact assessments relating to the census are conducted externally, with the final report published on the ABS website 12 months in advance of the census, and that following the release of a privacy impact assessment recommending changes to future censuses, consultation across the community should be undertaken by the ABS.<\/p>\n

Outcomes would be clearly documented on the ABS website no less than six months before a future census.<\/p>\n

This was agreed to, with the government noting that the ABS is already working on changes to ensure \u201csignificant changes to personal information handling practices will be subject to an independent Privacy Impact Assessment and broad consultation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government\u00a0agreed the ABS should update its internal guidelines to make clear that consultation requires active engagement with the nongovernment and private sector.<\/p>\n

The bureau is also looking at how to increase transparency around penalties for not completing the census \u201cto avoid unnecessarily concerning the community\u201d, while also achieving maximum compliance.<\/p>\n

The committee report expressed concern that the bureau be transparent about privacy breaches. The government\u2019s response notes that \u201cprivacy incidents that are identified, and are considered in scope of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner\u2019s (OAIC) guidelines for the notification of data breaches, are reported by the ABS as soon as practicable to the OAIC.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government noted the recommendation that the ABS conduct open tendering processes for future censuses, stating that \u201cprocurement of all census solutions will be conducted in line with the requirements of the Commonwealth Procurement Rules\u201d.<\/p>\n

Issues of access were also raised. The ABS\u00a0\u201cwill work closely with relevant stakeholders regarding effective ways to address the issues raised by vision impaired and other special audiences\u201d as part of preparations for the next census, says the official response.<\/p>\n

The government also rejected a committee recommendation \u201cthat the responsible minister act as a matter of urgency to assist the ABS in filling senior positions left vacant for greater than 6 months\u201d, noting that, apart from the Australian Statistician, it is not up to the government of the day to make such appointments.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Mandarin<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and iTunes<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The federal government has rejected calls to\u00a0give people the choice to withhold their name from the census, arguing that mandatory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40725"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}