UK plans to give 2011 Census data to USA

[Ekiqa]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/1 ... eed-martin

Boycott the UK census over links to Lockheed Martin, protesters say

People are being urged to boycott next month's UK's census because the US arms manufacturer responsible for Trident is involved in gathering the information.

Protesters say they are willing to break the law and face a £1,000 fine and a criminal record by refusing to fill in the 32-page questionnaire. Resistance to the decennial census is growing as a coalition of anti-war groups, pacifists, religious organisations and digital activists begin raising public awareness about the role of Lockheed Martin, America's largest arms manufacturer.

The company, which makes Trident nuclear missiles, cluster bombs and F-16 fighter jets, won the £150m contract to run the census on behalf of the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

A spokesman for the Stop the War Coalition said: "We will certainly be calling for a boycott and telling people not co-operate with the warmongers."

The Green party has dropped its original opposition to Lockheed Martin's lead role "because the census is extremely important and needs to be accurate", but there is grassroots disquiet.

A campaign to address the issue, bringing together religious groups, peace activists and digital data campaigners opposed to Lockheed Martin, is expected to emerge in the coming days. One of its organisers has told the Observer that a call for a boycott would be one of its major considerations. Siân Berry, a former Green party member who led the party's 2008 campaign against Lockheed's bid for the contract, said she was disappointed by the decision to support the census.

"The really worrying thing is the fact that the information being collected in the next census – including new questions on sources of income and place of birth [to help monitor immigration] – would be ideal fodder for the kind of anti-terror analyses being carried out by Lockheed, and could lead to a faraway database identifying thousands of us as potential 'threats'."

Lockheed Martin – which does 80% of its work for the US defence department – assists more than two dozen American government agencies and is involved in surveillance and data processing for the CIA and FBI. It has controversially provided private contract interrogators to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. All US-based companies are subject to the Patriot Act, which allows the US government to have access to any data in the company's possession. Campaigners have warned this could give the US government access to detailed and personal data on the UK's entire population.

But a spokesman for the ONS dismissed the fears. "No personal census data will be handled or seen by any American-owned company. No Lockheed Martin employees will see or handle any personal census data. The public can be reassured that their personal details from the census will be kept confidential and will remain so for 100 years," he said.

That assurance has failed to convince objectors. According to Geoff Meaden, a peace campaigner and former Green party parliamentary candidate, "we have no legal precedence as to whether, under the pretext of national security, this census information can be acquired by the US government.

"The Office for National Statistics claims that our data will be safe but the UK government has demonstrated on several occasions that it cannot be trusted with managing digital data containing personal records."

Simon Barrow, co-director of the Christian thinktank Ekklesia, which examines the role of religion, ethics and values in public life, said: "There are several reasons for concern over Lockheed Martin's involvement in the census. The government may have endangered the census by granting the contract to a company whose involvement has triggered a boycott.

"Many British people are likely to object to aiding the profits of a company that arms oppressive regimes and which has played a heavy role in the unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is understandable that some will conscientiously object to participating in the census and will choose to boycott it."

Any boycott of the census could lead to further funding problems for local councils, who already fear they will miss out on hundreds of millions of pounds of funding from central government because hundreds of thousands of people will not be counted.

The last census in 2001 has been accused of failing to count a million people and this time a number of major councils have expressed fears that lessons have not been learnt, a claim denied by the Office for National Statistics.

Census statistics are used to allocate public money for local services including education, housing, transport and health. Over £100bn per year of public money is distributed nationally using population estimates

Lockheed Martin is one of the companies required to give the US government the data it collects on foreign nationals. This census will be as useless as the current Canadian one.

[Zaune]

Unless that particular clause of the Patriot Act also includes foreign subsidiaries, this sounds like a storm in a teacup to me. Even if it does, data mining almost seventy million records would create so many false positives -and false negatives- that it would be more trouble than it was worth, with or without the diplomatic shitstorm that would likely result.

[Lord MJ]

LMCO didn't set up a European based subsidiary to handle contract bids like this, one that would not be subject to US laws? Seems like poor business planning on LMCO's part.

[Broomstick]

My thoughts:

1) Why would the UK hire a foreign company to do their census? I can think of a couple reasons to keep it with a UK outfit, from the national security angle brought up to the money used to pay for the census staying in-country.

2) If Lockheed Martin does do the census I hope they do a better job than they did with taking over Flight Services in the US, which turned into a complete clusterfuck if you ask me although according to Lockheed (of course) it's all peachy-keen

3) If the opposition to Lockheed doing the census is great and people are threatening to boycott the UK should seriously consider choosing someone else to do it.

4) If you don't think the US government is going to get their hands on data from this you're naive.

5) True, datamining all that data will generate numerous false positives. The anti-terror apparatus in the US does not care - whatever is experienced by those who are false positives is considered acceptable collateral damage. Members of Congress have wound up on TSA watchlists and find it impossible (or nearly so) to get off them, never mind the thousands of others labeled as high risk, down to infants.

6) Your census forms are thirty-two pages long? Our longest form was something like 12, which would have been for a huge household. Most of them were 4-6. Seriously, that sounds like a heck of a list of questions.

[ShadowDragon8685]

1) Why would the UK hire a foreign company to do their census? I can think of a couple reasons to keep it with a UK outfit, from the national security angle brought up to the money used to pay for the census staying in-country.

That seems incredible to me. Frankly I'm amazed they're hiring a firm to do the Census at all! Is there some reason Her Majesty's government can't hire a bunch of short-term workers to perform the census?

3) If the opposition to Lockheed doing the census is great and people are threatening to boycott the UK should seriously consider choosing someone else to do it.

Definitely. Personally, I would've been leery about answering the census if it was going through any kind of corporate middleman, and I worked on the Census myself!

4) If you don't think the US government is going to get their hands on data from this you're naive.

This, too. Hiring a company to do the census is a horrible idea from the word 'go,' but hiring a foreign company? That's idiotic. The beancounter(s) who made this call should be sacked, flogged, and barred from directly or indirectly working with any personal information more sensitive than "would you like chips with that?"

6) Your census forms are thirty-two pages long? Our longest form was something like 12, which would have been for a huge household. Most of them were 4-6. Seriously, that sounds like a heck of a list of questions.

Seriously... I would very much like to see a sample of the UK's census forms. That seems insane. Basically, what we wanted to know was:

• How many people lived in the household as of April 1st; as in they lived, ate, and slept there most of the time.
• If the dwelling was owned free and clear, owned with money owed on it, rented, or occupied without payment of rent.*
• What telephone number we could contact the household at.**
• The first and last name and middle initial of the persons living there.
• The gender of the persons living there.***
• The age and DoB of the persons living there.
• If the respondents were of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin.****
• What race the respondents were of.****
• Whether a person lived or stayed elsewhere some of the time - such as in college housing, in the military, at a seasonal or second residence, in prison, or so forth and so on.

A single person's responses took up half a page, and we included space for a few more people on the base form before they needed enumerators to break out extra forms.

Broomstick, you worked NRFU, right? Do you still have any sample forms left over from training that you could photograph/scan? I worked NRFU-RI, but I heaved my RI training materials since my case was near to bursting when I got brought back as a QC Lister. I looked through all the books I have leftover, but there's no sample form stuff left in the ones I have remaining.

*Such as if a building superintendent was getting a free apartment as part of her duties. This one never came up for me.
**Such as if someone made a fuck-up later on in our operation and we needed to ask back. A lot of people were leery about this since Americans are self-entitled pricks who can't give the government so much as an hour of their time once a decade.
***Mark down whatever they say. If they claimed something that was not male or female, I suppose we would've had to leave that check blank and write an Info-Comm to send up the chain with the form.
****No, the "Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin" question does not automatically answer the race question. For instance, let's take the case of a man who appears to be African American but was born in Puerto Rico. He might be so inclined to check the "Yes, Puerto Rican" answer on the hispanic origin question, but to check "Black, African Am., or Negro" on the race question. On the other hand, there might be people of very light skin from Puerto Rico who would prefer to check "White" on that last question, but are still Puerto Rican.

I should point out that that example was not in discussion of anyone real, but was the result of conversation about a hypothetical person I had with my uncle when he and I discussed the census forms and the difference between hispanic and latino origin and racial origin.

[Teebs]

Seriously... I would very much like to see a sample of the UK's census forms. That seems insane. Basically, what we wanted to know was:

Ask and you shall receive. Here is a list of the 2011 census questions.

[Broomstick]

Broomstick, you worked NRFU, right? Do you still have any sample forms left over from training that you could photograph/scan?

Yes I worked non-response follow up (NRFU) but when it was done we were required to turn all materials right down to our pencils and paperclips (alright, they probably wouldn't have come after someone for pencils and paperclips) and being overwhelmingly honest and stuff I turned all my stuff in. Might be able to find an example on-line, though. Don't have time to look for it right now but maybe later.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Broomstick, you worked NRFU, right? Do you still have any sample forms left over from training that you could photograph/scan?

Yes I worked non-response follow up (NRFU) but when it was done we were required to turn all materials right down to our pencils and paperclips (alright, they probably wouldn't have come after someone for pencils and paperclips) and being overwhelmingly honest and stuff I turned all my stuff in. Might be able to find an example on-line, though. Don't have time to look for it right now but maybe later.

Yeah, my group was told not to bother handing in anything that didn't have PII on it except my badge. They let me make off with a bunch of office supplies (I won't need pencils again 'till 2012,) my case (which I like as a souvenir) and my vest (which frankly I think they should've taken back and I wonder if there's anywhere I can send it.) I still have a stack of blank 308s and Info-Comms.

I guess Reinterview staff are trusted a little more. Still, drat. I tried looking for samples of the NRFU or NRFU-RI form, but the closest I could come was the mailed-out questionnaire.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Seriously... I would very much like to see a sample of the UK's census forms. That seems insane. Basically, what we wanted to know was:

Ask and you shall receive. Here is a list of the 2011 census questions.

Cheers. This looks like it's something meant for an enumerator (or whatever the folks who go door-to-door are being called) to read off point-by-point to someone who has an actual "fill this in and give it back" form in their hands.

Judging from the form you linked me to, it looks like they're trying to get a very high-resolution snapshot of the location of the UK's population's status and their building's status as of the 27th of March, with questions such as what kind of heating does this location possess, or inquiries about a person's health and religion (what, 'Jedi' isn't on the form this year?) and employment status and such. Honestly I can't see Americans tolerating questions that pry like that, though I can actually see the value of asking such questions.

My other thoughts are that this is going to be rough on the enumerators, unless the people of the UK are, on the whole, a lot nicer than the people of the US. (Though I doubt you'll have very many enumerators chased off someone's property by an irate household member with a gun. That happened to me.) It's going to take a lot of time to walk someone through a questionnaire of this size, especially if they're not fast to think, such as the elderly or the mentally challenged.

Other than that, I wouldn't have wanted a private company, let alone a foreign government, having access to simply the information on the US 2010 census. I'd be outright terrified at the thought of the US government having this much information on me if I weren't a US citizen.

[Broomstick]

Honestly I can't see Americans tolerating questions that pry like that, though I can actually see the value of asking such questions.

Honestly, the Americans barely tolerated what little the US government asked - go ahead and post a link to the mail-in census form, Shadow, it does after all have the same questions on it the enumerator forms did.

I'm told not everyone views their government with as much hostility and suspicion as Americans do, that might enable considerably more collecting of information than we could get.

[Simon_Jester]

Has anti-census paranoia in the US been on the rise in the US, do you think, Broomstick? I can easily imagine that people are more hostile to the idea than they were twenty, thirty, or forty years ago... but on the other hand, I have no way of knowing that.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Honestly, the Americans barely tolerated what little the US government asked - go ahead and post a link to the mail-in census form, Shadow, it does after all have the same questions on it the enumerator forms did.

I wasn't joking when I said I'd been run off by a man with a gun.* And of course, those of you who were reading OT a while back may remember me asking for advice on how to calm down and carry on after having been worked up in an intimidating blazing row.

Here it is (PDF).
Remember, the panels on the right hand side of the form are the first ones to read, as this is apparently a PDF copy of the master form that was printed out, folded and mailed.

I'm told not everyone views their government with as much hostility and suspicion as Americans do, that might enable considerably more collecting of information than we could get.

There's really no point in viewing the government with suspicion, I think. If they take an interest in knowing about you, within a day they'll know everything down to what your favorite meal is and what your favorite wank material is. The hostility, though, that is another matter - a lot of Americans are indoctrinated to hate the government, and I suspect that contributes to the problem wherein people don't want to give even absolutely benign Census workers the time of day.

*I was out enumerating and I had an address to visit. I went to the place and met someone babysitting who told me the household's head members would be home after a certain time, which was getting on in the day but still long before sundown, so I ask her if it would be better for me to come back then and she tells me yes. I come back, pull up the driveway (long friggin' driveway in mosquito country and I'm not remotely a fit guy,) and climb out of my truck and a guy starts walking towards me from the back yard. I introduce myself as Census bureau, hold up my badge, he says "You need to leave! I don't care who you are, you need to leave!"

The guy was wearing a pistol on his hip. When an armed man tells you that you need to leave, generally you tend to agree with him, so of course I got back in my truck and left.

Has anti-census paranoia in the US been on the rise in the US, do you think, Broomstick? I can easily imagine that people are more hostile to the idea than they were twenty, thirty, or forty years ago... but on the other hand, I have no way of knowing that.

It doesn't help when the media tend to bastardize the Census for dramatic effect. The only episode of Law & Order: SVU that I've ever taken offense at was the episode in which they decided to look for a little girl by race, approximate age and approximate area using a magic census database, and Burn Notice didn't exactly help when they had Jesse and Fiona masquerade as Census employees.

I'm not able to comment about whether or not specifically anti-Census paranoia is on the rise having been a callow youth at the time the 2000 census rolled around, but we were trained to deal with people holding the mistaken impression that we shared information we collected with law enforcement or immigration officials or local occupation authorities. It's perfectly understandable that people wouldn't want to talk to you if they're afraid they or their friends, family or loved ones could get in trouble if they did.

[Broomstick]

Has anti-census paranoia in the US been on the rise in the US, do you think, Broomstick? I can easily imagine that people are more hostile to the idea than they were twenty, thirty, or forty years ago... but on the other hand, I have no way of knowing that.

I'd say the focus of the hostility has changed more than the quantity.

There has been a segment of the US population hostile towards and suspicious of the US government from the very start, it absolutely is part of the national culture. In the past, hostility towards the census might have focused more on inaccurate counting (under counting blacks, over counting whites, that sort of thing), use of the data for corrupt purposes, and so on. Issues with immigration control and the census date back to at least 1980 that I'm aware of, (the first time I was old enough to fill out a census form myself, though that time I was still included as part of my parents' household) and likely further back than that. Census results have always been disputed, all the way back to the very first, as not all the data makes people happy.

However, some of the rumors I heard this time around were definitely new. For example, there was this bit going around that the census was collecting GPS data on every habitation in the US to hand over to the US military to target anti-government individuals and groups (target in a literal sense - though why the nutjobs I encountered thought they were worth a cruise missile is beyond me. Maybe they just needed to feel that important). That was definitely new. It had just enough basis in truth - the census was, in fact, using GPS collection to update its maps - to make the tinfoil hat crowd freak out. The truth is, that information was to update maps, which already had location information on the vast majority of habitations already. I don't know why the military would use the census maps, when Google hands out for free maps just as accurate, if not more so, over the internet. I rather expect the military would have better information already, not that I'd know anything about such a thing. Even if ground personnel couldn't get near a remote location aircraft certainly could (I was, in fact, at one point asked if I owned an aircraft and if so if I'd be willing to use it while doing census work, so draw you're own conclusion from that). As you point out, Simon, if the government really wants to know who you are and where you are they can find out pretty easily and don't even need to send someone to knock on your front door to do it.

With the political rhetoric pumped up over the last few election cycles, plus the war on terror bullshit, yes, the animosity this time around was greater than in 2000, but not that much greater. Citizens in this country have become much more suspicious of their government at least since Watergate back in the early 1970's, and it's been slowly increasing over time. It may appear to be a sudden jump, but it's not. This has been building for decades. Every time the pot suddenly boils over it's proceeded by a very period of increasing heat.

[ShadowDragon8685]

However, some of the rumors I heard this time around were definitely new. For example, there was this bit going around that the census was collecting GPS data on every habitation in the US to hand over to the US military to target anti-government individuals and groups (target in a literal sense - though why the nutjobs I encountered thought they were worth a cruise missile is beyond me. Maybe they just needed to feel that important). That was definitely new. It had just enough basis in truth - the census was, in fact, using GPS collection to update its maps - to make the tinfoil hat crowd freak out. The truth is, that information was to update maps, which already had location information on the vast majority of habitations already.

The last operation I worked on - as a QC Lister - was the follow-up on that. As I understand it, before the questionnaires and the enumerators went out, they had listers going out in 2009 with GPS units to map out buildings. A lot of my bosses during my operations worked on that phase. Listers and QC Listers went out again after the enumerations were done, doing much the same - verifying the existences of dwellings, noting down addresses and such, but we did it all by hand. I guess they threw away the GPS units that were used the first time.

I was, in fact, at one point asked if I owned an aircraft and if so if I'd be willing to use it while doing census work, so draw you're own conclusion from that.

As I understand it, from asking my bosses, the questions about aircraft and such during employment would be for places where special vehicular abilities and possessions would be needed - Alaska has a very small population, very sparsely spread out over an enormous area, for example, but damnit, they're citizens of the US and we're going to count them if at all possible. We wouldn't want them to go underrepresented - we owe them that much. I guess where you live may have been within aircraft range of some places similarly remote from driving that an airplane would be a better way to reach it, kind of like how in the everglades they'd want to hire some folk with airboats who are willing to go enumerating out in the sticks, and in rough or mountainous terrain it would matter if you have a 4WD that can handle steep roads, dirt/gravel roads or even outright offroading. (For the record I have a part-time 4WD Durango, but I was never called upon to navigate any hardcore terrain to get to anybody. The worst I ever did was drive up a few dirt driveways.)

I imagine that folks who bring special vehicles like airboats or aircraft to the table get significantly better than the standard $0.50/mile mileage rate. Would you have wanted to enumerate by aircraft if you still had a plane, Broomstick?

As you point out, Simon, if the government really wants to know who you are and where you are they can find out pretty easily and don't even need to send someone to knock on your front door to do it.

Hey, I pointed that out!

But yeah, people don't seem to get that the Census isn't about finding about you. If they're looking for you, specifically, talking to the Census man won't bring them any closer to you. We were only out to know how many people live in what areas. Actually, I soothed a few ruffled feathers by explaining that if I even so much as spoke with anyone at all, even law enforcement, I myself would be thrown in Federal prison.

With the political rhetoric pumped up over the last few election cycles, plus the war on terror bullshit, yes, the animosity this time around was greater than in 2000, but not that much greater. Citizens in this country have become much more suspicious of their government at least since Watergate back in the early 1970's, and it's been slowly increasing over time. It may appear to be a sudden jump, but it's not. This has been building for decades. Every time the pot suddenly boils over it's proceeded by a very period of increasing heat.

Do you really think it's that bad? When I was searching for the forms, I found this blog that was all about how the Census sucked and how to submit phony information and get away with it.

[Broomstick]

For those of you who don't like my wordy posts feel free to skip to the next one. This will be mostly answering Shadowdragon. Also, after this post maybe we should get back on track with this being about the UK census, unless the rest of you are finding this comparison stuff to be useful.

The last operation I worked on - as a QC Lister - was the follow-up on that. As I understand it, before the questionnaires and the enumerators went out, they had listers going out in 2009 with GPS units to map out buildings. A lot of my bosses during my operations worked on that phase. Listers and QC Listers went out again after the enumerations were done, doing much the same - verifying the existences of dwellings, noting down addresses and such, but we did it all by hand. I guess they threw away the GPS units that were used the first time.

Yep, I was part of the 2009 mapping as well. There were significant problems with the GPS units, which I won't go into as it's long, boring, technical, and I don't have the whole story. I could get mine to work fairly well, but then, I'm pretty good at forcing gizmos to work. One of the problems is that they were requisitioned and designed years in advance, which meant that by the time they were used their mapping functions were largely obsolete. There were also issues with (I'm told) the required security features slowing the whole thing down - each unit used biometric ID and passwords to access.

Personally, I though it was a great concept - you did everything on your handheld unit, and when it worked it worked really really well. The biggest problem was that they weren't reliable. The second biggest problem was that they weren't weather and waterproof. Um, guys... you're having people go door to door outside and you didn't think of this? The temperature restrictions on the units were ridiculous for much of the country during anything other than full summer, and the darn things could not tolerate even a little water. But it sure was nice having to carry fewer forms, and being able to transmit your daily work record electronically instead of having to chase down your supervisor, who was also out running around the region. And the GPS navigation provided was handy when you were out in the field looking for various locations, enough so I really did miss it when I was doing NRFU and had to look up routes on my PC before going out and needing to make paper printouts. Even worse when you had to make detours and just wing it. I'm unusual in that I habitually carry old fashioned paper maps around and know how to read them. Part of what I did during NRFU was find our lost enumerators and held them determine alternate routes to various locations.

Unfortunately, because this time around it turned into a clusterfuck I'm not sure they'll even try to implement something like it next time, even if it could be done better.

I did note, however, that many of my updates did make it on to the census maps used in 2011 (I did all my census work in the same general area) and that our GPS data was incorporated into some of the information handed over to enumerators during NRFU. So the information wasn't lost or dropped, it was incorporated into the maps. I like to think it was at least somewhat useful to somebody.

I was, in fact, at one point asked if I owned an aircraft and if so if I'd be willing to use it while doing census work, so draw you're own conclusion from that.

As I understand it, from asking my bosses, the questions about aircraft and such during employment would be for places where special vehicular abilities and possessions would be needed.

True. However, it is apparently also a question they ask of anyone on record as having a pilot's license. I expect they ask licensed boat captains about boats, and so forth.

I imagine that folks who bring special vehicles like airboats or aircraft to the table get significantly better than the standard $0.50/mile mileage rate. Would you have wanted to enumerate by aircraft if you still had a plane, Broomstick?

Oh, sure, any excuse to fly. Would likely be one of the few times I could actually make money flying with the current license I hold (please, don't ask me to go into the regs on that one!)

By the way - standard mileage rate for aircraft used for government work is $1.24, in case you were wondering.

As you point out, Simon, if the government really wants to know who you are and where you are they can find out pretty easily and don't even need to send someone to knock on your front door to do it.

Hey, I pointed that out!

My apologies - so you did.

With the political rhetoric pumped up over the last few election cycles, plus the war on terror bullshit, yes, the animosity this time around was greater than in 2000, but not that much greater. Citizens in this country have become much more suspicious of their government at least since Watergate back in the early 1970's, and it's been slowly increasing over time. It may appear to be a sudden jump, but it's not. This has been building for decades. Every time the pot suddenly boils over it's proceeded by a very period of increasing heat.

Do you really think it's that bad? When I was searching for the forms, I found this blog that was all about how the Census sucked and how to submit phony information and get away with it.

Yes, yes I do think it's that bad. But that would really got off into a tangent, so it would be more appropriate for another thread.

[Keevan_Colton]

The information asked this time round seems a bit off compared to the last one. For example asking for full details of your current/last employer and such. The 32 page figure comes from a repeat of the individual questions for every adult and child in the house and all visitors on the census date.


I will have some fun though I suppose, there's nothing quite so silly as a "how would you describe" question when threatening people with sanctions for not answering. I'm considering self identifying as a penguin for starters...

[Simon_Jester]

Regarding the UK census, I can see why contracting it out to Lockheed Martin is upsetting the British. For one, I don't see any obvious reason why they'd do a better job than anyone else. For another, accurate census-taking is an essential function of government, right up there with taxation, the military and the court system. It is NOT something you want to outsource to someone who might possibly have their own incentives in mind about what gets reported, recorded, or observed.

As you point out, Simon, if the government really wants to know who you are and where you are they can find out pretty easily and don't even need to send someone to knock on your front door to do it.

That was ShadowDragon.

...Something he said has been attributed to me and I'm not upset. This feels weird.

I imagine that folks who bring special vehicles like airboats or aircraft to the table get significantly better than the standard $0.50/mile mileage rate. Would you have wanted to enumerate by aircraft if you still had a plane, Broomstick?

I suspect the money would be good but she'd need bush pilot-style training to do the job in places where aircraft were necessary (like Alaska). which she doesn't have, so far as I know.

[Keevan_Colton]

Seriously... I would very much like to see a sample of the UK's census forms. That seems insane. Basically, what we wanted to know was:

Ask and you shall receive. Here is a list of the 2011 census questions.

Cheers. This looks like it's something meant for an enumerator (or whatever the folks who go door-to-door are being called) to read off point-by-point to someone who has an actual "fill this in and give it back" form in their hands.

If it follows the usual procedure here it'll be "fill it out and send it in" with everyone meant to fill it out with the details on a specific evening with regards to visitors and the like.

[Broomstick]

Regarding the UK census, I can see why contracting it out to Lockheed Martin is upsetting the British. For one, I don't see any obvious reason why they'd do a better job than anyone else. For another, accurate census-taking is an essential function of government, right up there with taxation, the military and the court system. It is NOT something you want to outsource to someone who might possibly have their own incentives in mind about what gets reported, recorded, or observed.

I think in the US the Feds are actually forbidden to "outsource" the job, not that the founding smugglers fathers ever heard the term. But the Feds are also very restricted in what they are allowed to ask on the Census as well. I am not familiar with the legal end of these matters (what little I saw in training made my eyes cross and gave me a headache) but it does seem the UK definition of "appropriate to ask on the census" is significantly different than what the US uses.

As you point out, Simon, if the government really wants to know who you are and where you are they can find out pretty easily and don't even need to send someone to knock on your front door to do it.

That was ShadowDragon.

...Something he said has been attributed to me and I'm not upset. This feels weird.

And my apologies to you as well.

I imagine that folks who bring special vehicles like airboats or aircraft to the table get significantly better than the standard $0.50/mile mileage rate. Would you have wanted to enumerate by aircraft if you still had a plane, Broomstick?

I suspect the money would be good but she'd need bush pilot-style training to do the job in places where aircraft were necessary (like Alaska). which she doesn't have, so far as I know.

Yes and no - I have a tailwheel sign off and specialize in small airplanes suitable for bush piloting, I've flown (or more accurately, done take-offs and landings) quite a bit off-field... arguably I have some working knowledge of "bush piloting", although not to the extent of the Alaskan pros. However, there are plenty of areas in the central portion of the CONUS like, say, Montana, the Dakotas, or Nebraska farm/ranch country where travel by air might have advantages over travel by road. Time, if nothing else.

[Zaune]

Regarding the UK census, I can see why contracting it out to Lockheed Martin is upsetting the British. For one, I don't see any obvious reason why they'd do a better job than anyone else. For another, accurate census-taking is an essential function of government, right up there with taxation, the military and the court system. It is NOT something you want to outsource to someone who might possibly have their own incentives in mind about what gets reported, recorded, or observed.

The Conservative Party are ideologically wedded to the idea that virtually anything and anyone can do a better job of running the country than the actual government, with the possible exception of law enforcement and the military. Lockheed probably got the job because they were the cheapest bidder, the most buzzword-compliant or the bidder with the most senior management in the same golf clubs as the right Members of Parliament.

[HMS Sophia]

The Conservative Party are ideologically wedded to the idea that virtually anything and anyone can do a better job of running the country than the actual government, with the possible exception of law enforcement and the military.

The conservatives have decided they cant do a good enough job running the military either... So they got rid of it.

As for the rest of it, the government is hiring people to go round collecting data, a friend of mine at uni is doing it. And is applying through the local council. I have yet to work out how Lockheed martin is running this, mainly due too that fact.
Also, most people don't know this is happening. I've mentioned it in a couple of classes, and nobody has any idea. Hell, this site is the first I heard of it...

EDIT: also, amusingly/worryingly enough, the census website makes absolutely no mention of Lockheed Martin or their involvement, it only mentions the ONS...

[Broomstick]

Been looking into this a bit more out of curiosity. Apparently Lockheed Martin was involved in the 2001 UK census, checking postcodes and processing returned forms. The contract this time around is for "data capture" and processing, which from what I gather involves automated systems to read paper forms and enter the information into databases without needing human data entry personnel. I haven't been able to determine it for sure, but it may be they are the ones who came up with the paper form reading system for the US census. That would be consistent with using UK citizens as enumerators, and much of the rest of the census being solely UK staffed and run. Lockheed says the work will be done by its UK subsidiaries and all data will remain entirely within the UK.

The thing that bothers me is that, while Lockheed representatives say they'll be happy to write confidentiality guarantees into the contract and assures the Patriot Act will not apply to the UK data, they apparently had no impulse to do that before the UK asked. Of course, none of us are privy to the actual contracts or negotiations, but I've known US companies I've worked for to simply not mention something like data privacy in a contract then turn around and sell it or otherwise use it as the other party clearly did not intend and justify it with the line "Well, the contract doesn't forbid it". If the UK is smart about this at all they'll have such guarantees written in. I'd like to think that the UK side of this is thinking about such things, but history shows that doesn't always happen. So far as I know there hasn't been even a peep about data leaks from Lockheed regarding the US Census information, but then the US Census is as paranoid as any other Federal agency and plasters confidentiality warnings everywhere, I have no doubt data restrictions appeared all over that contract. But despite common roots the US and the UK do have differing cultures.

Lockheed maintains that the companies that will be doing the work for the UK census are all UK based companies, but others say no, Lockheed is based in the US and those companies are subsidiaries at the beck and call of the US corporate office, which (it is implied) will be happy to suck vital information out of the UK census for the benefit of the US war on terror. This somewhat reminds me of the arguing over BP and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill - had some folks saying it was US companies in the BP family at fault, while others were holding the UK corporate headquarters of BP at fault. The situations are not, of course, an exact analogy but it illustrates how multinationals and their subsidiaries can result in a mess when it comes to who is responsible for what.

There also seems to be an opposition to using Lockheed based not on data security concerns but rather their role as a defense contractor/arm dealer/spyplane maker/missile builder/etc. Many of their websites say that Lockheed is "gathering" information, which is arguably untrue as it will be UK people outside of Lockheed doing the gathering face-to-face, but I'm not sure these folks find the distinction important.

Anyhow - it appears that Lockheed provided automated form-reading and data-capture services not only for the US 2000 and 2010 censuses, but also the 2006 and 2011 Canadian censuses. They actually do have expertise in this area. I question if their systems really are as capable of reading varied hand writing as claimed - I know we had problems with forms being rejected due to illegible scrawls, extraneous marks, damage from rain, coffee spills, mud, and Og knows what else. Even Lockheed admits that a certain number of forms will require a human to interpret (15% they say).


(Sources: BBC, Lockheed Martin Census Systems, and some very upset anti-war websites)

[Simon_Jester]

I think in the US the Feds are actually forbidden to "outsource" the job, not that the founding smugglers fathers ever heard the term.

At the time, they probably knew the practice as "tax farming," the early ancestor of modern outsourcing practices. The British East India Company also managed to maneuver the Mughals into outsourcing government functions to them in large parts of what was nominally still Mughal territory around that time... predictably leading to a horrendous famine in the EIC-governed areas.

Anyhow - it appears that Lockheed provided automated form-reading and data-capture services not only for the US 2000 and 2010 censuses, but also the 2006 and 2011 Canadian censuses. They actually do have expertise in this area. I question if their systems really are as capable of reading varied hand writing as claimed - I know we had problems with forms being rejected due to illegible scrawls, extraneous marks, damage from rain, coffee spills, mud, and Og knows what else. Even Lockheed admits that a certain number of forms will require a human to interpret (15% they say).

Getting past that mark would probably require either very expensive computers, computers so clever they've practically attained sentience, or both...

[Broomstick]

You know, Simon, having seen (and been required to help people write up the required report on ruined forms) truly getting past some of the illegibility problems would require greater than human abilities - man, it's amazing what can happen to a simple piece of paper!

[Bedlam]

You know, Simon, having seen (and been required to help people write up the required report on ruined forms) truly getting past some of the illegibility problems would require greater than human abilities - man, it's amazing what can happen to a simple piece of paper!

And of course if you talk to the person who filled in the form they'll tell you that is so obvious what they ment, you should have just read their mind about which of the mutually exclusive options they decided to fill in, its your fault you cant read it