Did You Fib On Your Census Form?

By now, many of you have managed to fill out the eCensus during one of its sporadic appearances online. With all the hoopla surrounding privacy breaches and flaky security, a lot of Aussies are risking stiff fines by deliberately fudging the survey with fake answers. Was anyone completely truthful? Take part in our poll to find out!

The 2016 Census has been mired in a ridiculous amount of controversy. Firstly, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) outraged pretty much everybody when it announced it would be retaining names and addresses for up to four years.

Then, the website keeled over and was hastily pulled offline by the ABS on the big night due to alleged DDoS attacks. Needless to say, many Aussies have harbored strong privacy concerns which the government is mostly ignoring. (Who could forget NSW National Party MP Michael McCormack’s infamous “much ado about nothing” comment?)

Lawyers and scholars have been openly encouraging civil disobedience in the wake of the privacy scandal to skew the accuracy of results. It’s worth noting that deliberately providing misleading information on the Census can incurfe penalties of up to $1800. Nevertheless, many Australians seem prepared to take the risk.

We’re curious to see how many of our readers went down the falsified information route. Did you answer every single question truthfully and honestly? Did you leave out any key information, such as your name? Or did you go hell for leather and invent a fictional Jewish Albanian Jedi with a big mansion and a one billion dollar job at the inflatable banana factory? Cast your vote in the poll below!


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


9 responses to “Did You Fib On Your Census Form?”