Thursday 10 March 2011

2011 Census

The Concise Oxford Dictionary:

Confidential: 1. spoken or written in confidence; 2. entrusted with secrets

Secrets: 1. kept or meant to be kept private, unknown or hidden from all.

Misrepresent: present wrongly; give a false or misleading account or idea of.

The front of the Census form states: "Your personal information is protected by law. Census information is kept confidential for 100 years." Yet the law already allows it to be shared with all 27 EU member states, public bodies and approved researchers.

By not stating that last fact, the Office for National Statistics has printed a blatant untruth and is therefore guilty of misrepresentation - something for which any commercial organisation would no doubt find themselves in court, it being an act defined in law as illegal.

Bear in mind that by asking us to complete the Census form, the ONS is offering us a contract - that our personal information is and will be kept confidential - but are prepared to break that contract with no warning that this will happen. On that basis I see no need for anyone to submit any information to anyone that is shown to be misleading us.


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

DO NOT send back the form.
Only slaves do their Masters bidding.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

A I have no intention of completing it, let alone sending it back.

The Gray Monk said...

As the Civil Service routinely abuses this information to promote both the socialist agenda and the multi-culturalism dogmas regarding "minority rights" I'd say they are being extremely disingenuous, but I suspect there is a penalty for not returning it as well - if sufficient people of 'British' descent do not return it from certain areas, the CS will be perfectly justified in claiming that as there are no 'British/Christian/White/Males/Heterosexuals the services needed by those groups are no longer necessary...

Rather like the Lottery Fund refusing to fund a Life Boat station in the Severn Estuary because it was not 'inclusive' enough.

William said...

Their pack arrived at my address yesterday and was addressed to something that doesn't exist, at least in the legalese dictionaries I've looked at, a 'legal occupier'.

So if a legal occupier doesn't exist and this document is addressed to them and not me if I as a living breathing human being opened it I would be committing an offence!

In't fire it went.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

TGM: see my previous comment. Yes there is a penalty for not returning the Census - so?

W: Interesting point you raise.....

knirirr said...

On that basis I see no need for anyone to submit any information to anyone that is shown to be misleading us.

…which is precisely why the form is accompanied by threats, and why enforcers will be hired to harass those who don't obey.
Interestingly, the official government site claims that 40 people within the UK were successfully punished for their disobedience at the time of the last census. I could not find figures for how many escaped without punishment or against whom the prosecutions failed.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

k: Trust you are keeping well?

An estimated 3million did not complete the 2001 census form. source:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/10/census-2011-do-we-need-it

Admittedly it says "last year" which I presume is a "typo".