12 March 2011 |
Problem with the 2011 UK Census?
In view of widespread and understandable concerns about the intrusive nature of the census we in the UK are asked to complete on 27 March, may I offer a few observations and a few relevant facts?
What Does the Law Demand?
Census Act 1920.
SCHEDULE
How Safe is Our Information?
Unlike in Northern Ireland and Scotland, the absolute confidentiality of personal information is no longer guaranteed by law in England and Wales. This was abolished by Nu-Labour in theStatistics and Registration Service Act 2007, section 39.
Census data collected in England will be treated as ‘restricted’, not ‘confidential’. Our forms will be processed by some 1300 temporary employees at an 800,000 square foot warehouse in Manchester. The Coalition government has provided no convincing assurances about the vetting of these temporary staff, nor the security being imposed on them and the data they handle, neither during nor after the process.
Data gathering in 2011 has been contracted to a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin – the US arms conglomerate. Eighty percent of LM’s work is for the US defence department. It assists more than two dozen American government agencies and is involved in surveillance and data processing for the CIA and FBI. It has 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. In other words, the US government will have legal access to detailed and highly personal data on the UK's entire population.
The Census website boldly states, without qualification, that “completing the census online is straightforward, convenient and secure”. Each census form has a 20-digit “personal” internet access code. Describing it as “personal” when it is addressed to “The Occupier”, and accessible to anyone who happens to see the form lying around, is absurdly irresponsible.
How could bureaucrats with a long history of failing to keep data secure contemplate any such thing? If amateur hackers can break into the Pentagon’s computers, there can be no credible guarantee that the British government could guarantee better security – especially given their appalling track-record.
Worse, there have been no government guarantees that criminals will be prevented from gaining access to raw census data. How can it, when all our personal data will be available to the police, the intelligence agencies, immigration authorities, tax inspectors, DWP investigators, foreign governments, the EU, and to private sector and academic 'approved researchers'?
The Office for National Statistics’ claim that this data will be safe is worthless. Far too often the UK government has failed to secure and protect personal records in digital format. We have no credible reason to believe them this time.
Intrusive Role of the European Union
In 2008 the European Parliament approved a Census Regulation requiring the harmonization of outputs from member states’ censuses of population and housing. It is now law in the UK. The regulation requires that information collected in the UK is passed to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics institution, which was totally discredited for fraud and corruption amongst its own senior staff in a major scandal over many years.
(I know – I was there. And I was involved in exposing serious criminality, which did my already strained relations with the EU’s ruling elite no good at all!)
Statewatch, the civil liberties body that monitors the EU, has discovered that Brussels wants law enforcement agencies in member countries to build lists of political activists as part of a 'systematic data collection'.
No doubt the 2011 census will provide a good starting point.
Invasive Questions and Wrong Assumptions
Who is expected to respond? The census is addressed to “the occupier” – singular. Yet there is space for answers relating to six people, and visitors. The preamble makes it plain that “the occupier” is legally liable for the accuracy of answers relating to all the others.
The government ‘justifies’ the need for the census by claiming that, amongst other things, it is required to plan the provision of education, health, transport, policing, housing and so on. Apparently we are expected to believe that these services are today being managed on the basis of the census taken ten years ago. It’s demonstrably ridiculous. Such services are demand led, and rightly so. The use of census statistics to plan and deliver them is at best highly marginal and rapidly out of date.
Unlike previous censuses, people are expected to state their employer's name, their main activity, their address, and the full postal address of the location where that individual works. This applies to everyone, whether they work for Tesco or the intelligence services. Even people who are supposedly in a witness protection scheme after giving evidence at a criminal trial must provide this information.
The first question on employment provides nowhere for a retired person to state that fact. The assumption is that he or she should have been looking for work in the previous week, if not actually working. The chance to declare that they are retired comes later. Volunteers who work for nothing have nowhere to say so.
There are far more intrusive questions on ethnic origins than 10 years ago, unsurprising after the torrent of foreign nationals allowed to live here over the last decade. Answers are mandatory. Questions on religion are not. However, despite there being over 390,000 self-declared Jedi recorded in the 2001 census (more than there were Sikhs or Jews) there is no tick box for Jedi.
Even the reasonable voice of Charles Moore, former editor of The Daily Telegraph, complains (12 March) that the intrusive questions on ethnicity will be used by government and others to exploit the race and culture wars which bedevil us. They reinforce divisions.
So, I might add, does the expensive provision of census forms in over 50 other languages. How better to reinforce the divisions in today’s fractured British society? Those of us meeting the cost of such indulgence might reasonably ask foreigners who have chosen to live in the UK to adopt our language, culture and way of life, at least outwardly.
Legal and Constitutional Protection
In 2001 over 1.5 million households failed to complete the census, but only 38 were prosecuted. But that was 10 years ago.
The Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act provide us with protection against an overbearing state. Well, that’s the theory anyway.
Several other aspects British and international law are also relevant.
Both Magna Carta, 1215, and the Declaration of Rights, 1688, were contracts made directly between the Crown and the people. Both were and still are beyond the powers of parliament. Any repeal of statutes leaves the original contracts untouched. (References: Speaker Betty Boothroyd, Hansard 21 July 1993, and a letter from the House of Lords Archives Office to me in September 2000.)
Magna Carta recognises the rights of subjects of the Crown to hold government to account. This is sometimes described as the right to ‘lawful rebellion’, and was specifically confirmed in the oath sworn by Henry III at his coronation on 28 October 1216.
The Bill of Rights went further. It explicitly forbids the recognition of power over what is now the UK by any “foreign person, prelate, state or potentate”. In other words our joining what was then the Common Market was unlawful, and our membership of the EU remains unlawful. Most certainly passing information to Brussels to assist their governance of the UK is illegal.
Our constitution is fragmented but clear. It provides that the state answers to the people. We, the people, do not answer to the state. There is no such legal entity as a British state.
We are a sovereign people and we elect individuals for a maximum of five years to look after our best interests. And any future parliament has an absolute right to repeal any Acts passed by previous governments. Thus, they answer to us.
Several clauses in the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights defend our right to privacy.
3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
So Where Does That Leave Us? A census is only possible with the general consent of the population. In some countries this no longer exists. Germany has not taken a full census since that planned for 1983 was postponed until 1987. The Netherlands has not had a census since 1971, following a high level of refusal previously. Both these countries, and Denmark, now use alternative data sources based mostly on housing registers and sample surveys.
The UK government has made no secret of its irritation at having to carry out the 2011 census, which was put in train by Nu-Labour before the election last year. It will cost almost half a billion pounds.
The Coalition has initiated work on data-collection alternatives, so that the 2011 census proves to be the last of its kind.
Meanwhile, what to do?
All the basic information about each of us is in the public domain already. That is – name, address, age, sex and marital status.
If you plan to complete it at all, you might consider …
(a) providing the legally specific information required only, and (b) posting it.
By the way, the Royal Mail admits to several million letters a year not reaching their intended destination.
Think on…
Census Form 2011 final. We live and learn a little more about the EU each day. As it is coming up to Census time once more for the United Kingdom Government to recognise just how many people are living here and how they are living, most of us so far, have never minded sharing the "facts of life" with the powers that be here in the UK. However this year, the 2011 Census is very different, for the information we give is going to be shared, guess who with? The European Union. This information is in the "Official Journal of the European Union" 13.8.2008 page L 218/14. No wonder there are far more intrusive questions to answer and now we know why. How dare our British Government accept this? This was passed by the EU in 2008 for goodness sake, but why were Labour and now the LibDemCon’s afraid to tell the people of this Country that it is not exactly purely a National Census form? What are they afraid of? If they are ashamed of ratifying EU Treaties that allow such as this-why did they agree to them? I have no objection to filling the usual kind of form that is for the UK alone but I will not fill in, in full such an intrusive form that is to be shared with an organisation the people of this Country have never had a say on, nor had the opportunity to reject or accept. Do we give all the details required on the form to strangers we happen to meet in our own home town? No? Then why should foreigners want to know? Why should anyone think I would be happy to share with the EU, an Organisation I have never been allowed to have a ‘say’ on? There are certain questions I cannot answer. I will however, answer the kind of answers that were on the original UK Census should this Government want to plan for feeding, housing etc, but no matter what the numbers, they are not prepared to DEFEND us. xxxxxxxap Official Journal of the European Union on population and Housing Censuses http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:218:0014:0020:EN:PDF or http://eur-lex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:218:SOM:en:HTML Census questions, forms and definitions. http://www.census.ac.uk/guides/Qf.aspx Scotland Census Form http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/files2/the-census/scotlands-census-2011-specimen-questionnaire.pdf European Union (EU) legislation On 20 February 2008 the European Parliament approved a Council (Framework) Census Regulation covering the harmonization of outputs from member states’ censuses of population and housing. This took affect when it was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 9 July 2008. The regulation provides for the specification of outputs, the means of submission of these to Eurostat, and the requirement to provide metadata and quality reports, to be prescribed by subordinate Commission (Implementing) Regulations. These are currently being drafted with input from the EU Legislation Task Force of which the UK is a member. The Council Regulation which prescribes the reference year for the next round of censuses as being 2011. Thereafter, reference years will be determined by subsequent Commission Regulations. The Regulation also requires Member States to make available the results of their census by end of March 2014. The Framework Regulation is intended to be a permanent piece of legislation concerned with establishing common rules for the decennial provision of comprehensive population and housing data to be collected from traditional census taking or from alternative sources such as surveys and registers, or from combinations of such sources. Etc. **************************** http://www.census.ac.uk/guides/inter_census.aspx International census resources. Most, but not all, countries conduct regular censuses of their populations. For many countries this is a statutory requirement, sometimes at the supranational level (e.g. the European Union). In 1995 the United Nations even passed a resolution calling on all its member countries to compile census data by 2004. However, a census is only possible with the general consent of the population and in some countries this is no longer present. For example, Germany has not taken a full census since the census planned for 1983 had to be postponed until 1987 because of public concern over the proposed use of census returns to update local population registers. The Netherlands have not had a census since 1971, following a high level of refusal in 1971, and poor test returns in 1979. Both these and a number of other countries (including Denmark) have turned to alternative data sources, particularly population and housing registers and sample surveys, as the source of population statistics. Census.ac.uk does not provide access to these international resources and cannot vouch for the quality or appropriateness of those listed below, except to say that it is believed these are some of the most significant, especially for modern census data. Etc. Cabinet Office 25 Oct 2010 : Column 4WS London Regional Committee Report (Government Response) The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude): The report by the House of Commons London Regional Committee on their only inquiry into London's population and the 2011 census was published on 31 March 2010 (HC 349). This Government did not re-establish the Regional Committees. They recognise the importance of providing a response to Parliament on the issues raised by the Committee. The majority of the recommendations in the report were for the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Two of the Committee's recommendations were for Government and this written ministerial statement provides the Government's response. The other recommendations were for ONS and I have placed today a copy of its response in the Library of the House. This Government have serious concerns about the 2011 census introduced by the previous Parliament. Having given the issue serious consideration, and the costs already incurred, the 2011 census is the only way that unique information can be provided to meet essential UK and EU requirements in the given timeframe at no extra cost than that budgeted. It is important that the 2011 census goes ahead and this Government will continue to promote the importance of the public engaging with the 2011 census. Given the highly mobile nature of the population, the UK Statistics Authority recognises the increasing difficulties and costs in carrying out a census. The authority has therefore instructed ONS to urgently work on developing alternatives, with the intention that the 2011 census is the last of its kind. Recommendation 21 of the Committee's report was dealt with by the previous Government, with my predecessor writing to the Chair of the Committee shortly before the report was published. Recommendation 14 of the report was on the need for the census address register being developed by the ONS for the 2011 census to be maintained after the census. The previous Government failed to deliver a definitive address register, despite the demands for such a register and the associated costs of inefficiency in maintaining a number of similar registers. This Government are working with the parties concerned and will look to deliver a definitive register. Considerable progress has already been achieved. The work ONS has done will form part of the solution. **************************** International perspective and EU Regulations 1.22 The need for information is shared by the European Union (EU). The European Commission needs to be in possession of sufficiently reliable and comparable data on population and housing in order to fulfill the tasks assigned to it, notably by Articles 2 and 3 of the Treaty establishing the European Community10. To this end a Council and European Parliament Regulation requiring Member States to provide the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat) with census derived statistical information, or equivalent data, relating to the reference year 2011 came into force in July 2008. Aggregated statistics, agreed by the National Statistical Institutes of Member States, and to be prescribed by a subsequent Commission Regulation, will be supplied to Eurostat for use by the European Commission in support of the European Parliament. Arrangements will be put in place to ensure that statistical disclosure controls are in place to protect the confidentiality of any statistical data to be made accessible to Eurostat under this obligation (see also Chapter 6). The United Kingdom is playing a full part in discussions to ensure harmonization of the statistics produced by the different EU Member States. The concepts and definitions to be adopted by the EU will adhere to the Conference of European Statisticians’ Recommendations for the 2010 Censuses of Population and Housing, prepared by a joint Eurostat and UN Economic Commission for Europe Working Group, to which the UK made a significant contribution. Data access and data sharing 6.12 The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) gives discretionary powers to the UK Statistics Authority (Statistics Board) to allow wider access to census information provided that any such disclosure: is permitted under other legislation is required to fulfil a European Community obligation is necessary for the purposes of enabling or assisting the Board to exercise any of its functions is to persons providing services to the Board, if the Board considers it necessary or appropriate to do so for the purposes of the provision of those services has already lawfully been made available to the public is made in pursuance or an order of any court or for the purposes of a criminal investigation or proceedings is made in the interest of national security is made with the consent of the person to whom it relates, or is made to an approved researcher. Commons Hansard http://services.parliament.uk/hansard/Commons/ByDate/20090203/mainchamberdebates/part007.html http://services.parliament.uk/hansard/Lords/ByDate/20100113/writtenanswers/part004.html London Census Laying down the law for 2011 Census Census Order and Census Regulations The main legislation that provides for census taking in England and Wales is the Census Act 1920. The act says that, every time we want to run a census, we must first make new laws in the shape of a Census Order and Census Regulations governing exactly how the census will be conducted. So, if we don’t get a Census Order and Census Regulations approved by both Houses of Parliament, we can’t have a census. It’s that simple. The Census Order is presented to Parliament for scrutiny and debate and must be approved separately by committees in both Houses of Parliament. Once approved by Parliament, the Order is made law by the Queen. The Order states:
The Order for the 2011 Census was laid before Parliament in October 2009 and was approved by Parliament and became law in December 2009. In March 2010, the Minister for the Cabinet Office made Census Regulations and laid them before Parliament. These detail how the census will be conducted in England, with examples of the questionnaires we want to use. The Census Regulations became law on 31 March 2010. Welsh Ministers made separate Regulations, covering the census in Wales, in the National Assembly for Wales under powers transferred to Welsh Ministers by virtue of the Transfer of Functions (No. 2) Order 2006. All the necessary legislation to hold a census is now in place. So we’re all ready to go. http://2011.census.gov.uk/Laying-down-the-law-for-2011-Censushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_in_the_United_Kingdomhttp://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/cenwp1208.pdf The legislative process necessary to undertake a Census in England and Wales is governed by the 1920 Census Act, as amended by the Census (Amendment) Act 2000 and the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, and makes provision for a census to be taken no more frequently than every five years. There are three stages to the parliamentary process: · White Paper · Census Order · Census Regulations White Paper The 2011 Census of Population and Housing White Paper ' Helping to shape tomorrow '(Cm 7513) announcing the UK Statistics Authority's proposals for the 2011 Census in England and Wales, was presented to Parliament in a written Ministerial statement on 11 December 2008 and in bilingual format to the National Assembly for Wales by the Minister for Finance and Public Service Delivery. The White Paper details the extensive consultation undertaken to identify requirements for Census data and sets out the topics and questions proposed for inclusion. It also highlights changes in methodology, such as the delivery of questionnaires by post and the option to complete the questionnaire via the Internet. Data security and confidentiality are highlighted as top priorities in all of these plans. Census Order: The Census Order, which sets out the details of the information to be to be collected from the 2011 Census questions, was laid before Parliament on 21 October and debated in a Commons committee on 30 November 2009 and in the House of Lords on 2 December 2009. The Order was approved by both Houses and was made by the Privy Council on 9 December. Census Regulations: The Minister for the Cabinet Office laid the Census Regulations before Parliament on 4 March 2010 and they came into force on 31 March 2010. The Regulations describe the delivery and collection methodology, prescribe the measures to ensure the security of the completed forms and confidentiality of the data in the field, and include specimens of the questionnaires to be used. The Regulations are subject to the negative resolution procedure of both Houses. Separate Regulations for Wales were laid before the National Assembly for Wales in April 2010. Wider UK legislative process: Legislative responsibility for the censuses in Scotland and Northern Ireland are devolved to the respective legislatures. The responsibility for making Census Regulations with respect to the census in Wales now rests with Welsh ministers having been transferred from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the National Assembly for Wales in December 2006 by virtue of a Transfer of Functions Order (TFO), made under the provisions of the Government in Wales Act 1998. The TFO also makes provision for Welsh ministers to be consulted on the content of the Census Order. The regulations for Wales will follow the same timetable as those for England. European Union (EU) legislation:The UK is an active participant in ongoing initiatives involved in advising the European Commission and developing EU legislation which will define the protocols involved with the timing, scope and harmonization of 2011 census-type outputs to be supplied to Eurostat by member states. More details about the regulations, their implementation, and the EU Task Force contributing to their development can be found in the link above. http://www.ons.gov.uk/census/2011-census/2011-census-project/legislation/index.html http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm75/7513/7513.pdf Office for National Statistics (ONS)International perspective and EU Regulations 1.22 The need for information is shared by the European Union (EU). The European Commission needs to be in possession of sufficiently reliable and comparable data on population and housing in order to fulfil the tasks assigned to it, notably by Articles 2 and 3 of the Treaty establishing the European Community10. To this end a Council and European Parliament Regulation11 requiring Member States to provide the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat) with censusderived statistical information, or equivalent data, relating to the reference year 2011 came into force in July 2008. Aggregated statistics, agreed by the National Statistical Institutes of Member States, and to be prescribed by a subsequent Commission Regulation, will be supplied to Eurostat for use by the European Commission in support of the European Parliament. Arrangements will be put in place to ensure that statistical disclosure controls are in place to protect the confidentiality of any statistical data to be made accessible to Eurostat under this obligation (see also Chapter 6). 1.23 The United Kingdom is playing a full part in discussions to ensure harmonisation of the statistics produced by the different EU Member States. The concepts and definitions to be adopted by the EU will adhere to the Conference of European Statisticians’ Recommendations for the 2010 Censuses of Population and Housing12, prepared by a joint Eurostat and UN Economic Commission for Europe Working Group, to which the UK made a significant contribution. The UK will also comply, as far as possible, with any statistical requirements identified by the United Nations (UN). A set of principles and recommendations for the next round of censuses throughout the world has been adopted13, following a meeting of the UN Statistical Commission in New York in February 2008, and all countries have been asked to produce core outputs which will be incorporated into a UN demographic publication. In response to some replies I have received. Firstly, all the census papers I have filled in, in the past have been for this Country only. The contents have remained in this Country only. When the Government mentioned that there were more questions on the Census Form for 2011, not once did they mention this time it was different because THEY had agreed that all the information would be forwarded to the European Union. That in fact they had no option because of the recording in the Official Journal of the European Union written in 2008, plenty of time for Labour and the Coalition to tell the people. What are they afraid of? This was dishonest in exactly the same way it was dishonest of Edward Heath to tell the people of this Country that "there would be no loss of essential Sovereignty if we joined the Common Market". British Governments have known since or before 2008 of EU involvement, plenty of time to tell the people. This was even before LISBON was ratified. They betrayed the people and can you imagine if they told the Queen? I have had enough of dishonesty from British Governments over all these years and I will only be filling in the census as per the last census. I will fill the house with people off the street for one night if I have to, yet not record any of them on the paper. Do any of YOU think ‘illegals’ will be recorded? We elect and pay our MP’s to govern us and the reason this Census has caused such an outrage is because it is PERSONAL, CONFIDENTIAL and only of interest to our own Country that should see to the need of this Country and the people in it. If any of this information is of possible interest to foreigners in the European Union, that it is required by the EU through force or under threat of a £1000 fine backed up with a criminal record, then this Country if no longer sovereign. For a British Government to have agree to this they should be ashamed of themselves- especially how we have witnessed how they treat themselves re expenses-yet it is our money they are accidentally taking advantage of. I did not ask to be a citizen of the EU for it is not, as I understand it a Country to be a citizen of, and I renounced that eU Citizenship in 2003. This I have to record in response to xxxxxxxx I watched-just after the war ended-the opening of BELSEN-on old fashioned film-that could not be doctored- with the big important men and one tall lady and I can't remember her name now but I think she was a politician, She had a handkerchief covering her nose and mouth. I never forgot it, but we were made to see it so that we would never forget the terrible scenes there, unclothed bodies piled up in little mountains, dotted about all over the camp. Some people almost unclothed alive like skeletons walking around not knowing why or what they were doing-completely blank faces, and bumping into each other-unforgettable terrible scenes and I doubt anyone of us ever did forget what we saw that day-you see, we never thought anything like that could happen, quite simply because we are people that could never do such a thing to another human being. Now? I do not trust anyone any more. Yet you see, I never thought this Country would be handed over to foreigners to govern forever BY OUR OWN PEOPLE, but it has been and the process is almost complete. This is one way resistant could start. We were told there would never be another war. What was Iraq, Afghanistan and what is happening in countries today, and those will not be the last of these terrible troubles nor the many deaths either? xxxxxxxxxx ap |
Monday, 14 March 2011
I am forwarding this on to you and also including my own article on the same subject in attachment. (I have already sent this round once-just zap away if you have already had it) Ashley has included Statewatch and The Guardian which I suggest you click on if you havent already read those.
Anne
Posts
