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Census time approaches once more (11/8) (info.census.abs.gov.au)
submitted 1 day ago by Tau@aussie.zone to c/australia@aussie.zone
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Got my letter in the mail today, doesn't seem that long ago that we had the last one...

Census date is 11th of August if you haven't gotten the letter yet.

I note they're definitely trying to spread the load this time by highlighting you can do it as soon as you get the letter rather than waiting for the actual date. Smarter move - albeit less amusing - than everyone doing it on the night, crashing the servers, and the ABS claiming it was a DDoS attack (I mean most of the country accessing your server does fit the definition, but they asked for it).

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[-] Tau@aussie.zone 1 points 8 hours ago

You'll just have to choose between whether you want to be potentially identifiable or whether you want to make it known that there is a certain percentage of people with your specific circumstances/situation (who might need particular services, or be likely to vote for particular policies).

If you're unique enough to be obvious from a postcode and census answers then I don't really see how you can definitively avoid identification without removing potentially useful data (i.e. you'd have to remove/generalise questions or move to a higher level location category). It's a bit of a balancing act as evidenced in this thread with you worried about specificity while ada wants to narrow things down even more.

[-] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 hours ago

I stopped answering these things accurately when they left them tagged with your details.

If you want vulnerable people to fill out forms accurately you've gotta make sure that said forms can't be used to round them up when the political winds blow the other way or an occupying force takes over. Governments keep records for a very long time and censuses have a history of being used for violence.

this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2026
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