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.
