WHY DID THE ABS CHANGE THE ORIGINAL PROPOSAL WHICH INVOLVED USING THE WHOLE POPULATION?
The ABS commissioned an independent Privacy Impact Assessment into its original Census Data Enhancement proposal. This confirmed that ABS procedures and the current legislative environment provided a safe basis for the proposal to proceed. However, the assessment noted that there was a residual privacy risk to the proposal – that the information gained could prove so attractive to a future government that legislation might be changed to enable inappropriate access to it. The report noted that this would run totally counter to the experience of the past 100 years. During that time governments had actually improved legislative protection of ABS data. In spite of this reassuring history, a number of submissions indicated concerns about the comprehensive nature of the original proposal. While the ABS is very confident about its privacy safeguards, it responded to these concerns. The central consideration for the ABS is maintaining public confidence in the Census. As a result the ABS decide
