Census

Glastnost - so rather than encouraging Lockheed to find more civilian revenue streams, we should say ' fuck off, go and make some more thumb screws'?

I understand the defensive attitude ner but refrain from being quite so aggressive just because I'm not as blasé as you about a foreign arms manufacturers managing this census. Your trusting nature of all things parliamentary and death 'n' destruction wreaking for profit is touching. Enjoy your job! Night.

nost - may I call you nost?

You have got to be the rudest person I've come across on here Fattner. OOOOh i so devastated at you using the second part of my name in an attempt to insult me. That was a truly clever insult for someone of your towering intellect.

Your responses beg the question....As you dont live in this country,what the fuck do you care? You dont have to complete a form, so your secrets are safe!

Census is not down to GOVERNMENT - its down to PARLIAMENT. Yep, Labour, Tory, Coalition - they've been doing it for years and thats clearly whats caused the banking crisis, the housing market crisis and the increase in wheat prices. We are being manipulated! Time to stock up the panic room with beans and candles folks!

Census has been around for millenia, and is done in over 200 countries in the world. Are we all be monitored by the secret service? Does the CIA really have manpower to worry that Mrs and Mrs Brown of Chaffinch drive, in Basingstoke, have gas central heating in their mortgaged bungalow? that Mrs J Winthorpe, 65, of Milton Keynes, stayed with them overnight on 27th March? They will be planning their entire defence budget around this fact!

Get a grip Nost.

The government's cutting all those services that you seem sure the census is intended to improve. Tad ironic, isn't it? I'll just light another spliff shall I.

You have got to be the rudest person I've come across on here Fattner. Very bitchily implying that anyone who dares question the benign intentions of the gov in doing this census is paranoid. I wish I had such blind faith in our leaders as you so obviously do. Your world must be such a simpler place.

It's not my problem as I don't even live in the UK. In a world where Cameron takes arms dealers with him on a jolly to Egypt post revolution there's not alot to marvel at.

If the census is such a cuddly, decent all round PROPER thing to do (as I'm sure it was once upon a time) why the hell get a foreign arms dealer to carry it out? Just a thought. The UK prides itself on being more democratic and morally superior to so many other countries (the ones it sells arms to for example) yet Brits don't seem to notice just how controlled they are. I'm glad don't live there anymore.

ROFL

HattiFattner I think I love you!

Glasnost oooooh get you...maybe I should change my name to sarcasticsuperficialschlong! "How fukkin rude" - indeed.

Seriously, which particular question about you did you feel would be useful for the CIA and the American administration....?

Whereas knowing how many people are crammed into a 3 bed house, knowing how many people are looking after disabled or elderly people, knowing how many people in an area don't speak English.....goodness, do ya think this might possibly be useful to local government when deciding what services are needed in your neck of the woods? services like - oooh I dont know....hospitals, schools,recreation facilities,elderly provision, public transport, surestart centres etc etc etc.

But if you want to be paranoid, go ahead, light up another spliff and get all twitchy about the dark car parked outside your house, the men in black following you...and those clicks on your phone line.

Oh, they'll cross reference the UK Census data with all our private texts, emails and phone calls, Coalition. Then they'll psychologically profile each of us individually and engage in personalised mind control techniques to brainwash all Brits into supporting the US Foreign Policy no matter what it is.

I mean, it's not like the CIA has anything better to do, right?

If the census data DID fall into the hands if a CIA black ops operation, what are they going to use the data FOR?

What are you afraid the data is going to be used for? It's not being done by a company that is obliged to pass the data to the US. It's being done by a UK company that is legally forbidden to pass the data back to it's parent. Isn't it preferable for companies that make weapons get there money from somewhere else?

How do YOU know what the info is used for? Are you a part of the government coalition? (arf)

Apart from that which is all arguable I object to an arms dealer being behind it. Simple as. Especially one legally obliged to pass on any info to US gov and CIA. Sticks in the craw somewhat.

And why do you if I care? I brought the matter up as alot of people are unaware of this. Best to have full facts on something being passed off as a civic duty.

The microsoft/Google analogy of Fattner or whatever the name was is misleading too as not everyone has a computer whereas everyone HASTO do the census or gets fined.

Census data is there to allow government to make good decisions about tax raising and resource allocation - is anybody actually opposed to that?

Glasnost - the point is still there though - why do you care?

HattiFattner if you're typical of the sarcastic superficial schlongs being employed to do census even more reason not to fill it in properly.

You've obviously not been using MN for long if you think we're all housewives or all from Pinner.........how fukkin rude.

I dont think we need to get hysterical over lockheed- Google and microsoft can access far more interesting information about us if they wish! Good lord, even Mumsnet have access to more details about you than can be gleaned from the questionnaire!

I just completed my training for census.

Just a few nuggets of information:

You need to complete all questions except the religion one.

Failure to complete every question will result in you having to fill in a new form from scratch - the collectors will not know what question you missed, only that you missed something. In this case you will be back on the collectors list and asked to complete a new form.

(If you fill in the form online, you will not be able to submit it unless you have completed all the information.)

You are legally obliged to complete the form truthfully - it has a statement at the back that says you have completed to the best of your knowledge.

Failure to complete the form could result in a £1000 fine and could also lead to a custodial sentence!!!

Prosecutions will happen - according to our trainer, people who dont do their forms are "low hanging fruit" for the CPS to make up their quotas.

Refusals will be recorded by the collectors - and will result in a different person coming back to discuss your refusal and the possible consequences. Details of your refusal will be recorded and may form part of the evidence against you if you end up in court.

If you have more than 6 people in your household, dont bother with the paper form, do it online.

on a seperate note, for the paranoid housewives of eg Pinner and Wimbledon, why would a multinational arms dealer care if you have central heating and two cars? You must have a very inflated opinion of yourself if you think the minutae of your life, your marital status, your date of birth and the number of bedrooms in your property have implications for national security!

Penny's just dropped! Could be a cunning plan to pay even less to local councils by purposefully drumming up conscientious objectors to Lockheed's involvement! Wow the gov's more on the ball than I'd thought.

Even better reason to fill it in erroneously then.

Tabitha - Why don't you wnat to tell them where you work? I can see how better data about the length of commutes etc. could be very useful. You already tell the tax authorities which company you work for.

"Concerns expressed about the possibility of the US Patriot Act being used by US
intelligence services have been addressed by a number of additional contractual and
operational safeguards. These arrangements have been put in place to ensure that US
authorities are unable to access census data.
All data processing will be carried out in UK ? no data will leave or be held at any
point outside the UK;
All data is the property of the ONS and only UK/EU owned companies will have any
access to personal census data.
The only people who have access to the full census dataset in the operational data
centre will be ONS staff.
No Lockheed Martin staff (from either the US parent or UK company) will have
access to any personal census data.
ONS will control system access rights to all data systems;
Existing law already prevents the disclosure of census data ? it is a criminal offence
to disclose personal census data and is punishable by a fine and/or up to two years
in prison.
All census employees and contractors working on the census sign a declaration of
confidentiality to guarantee their understanding and compliance with the law.
Independent checks by an accredited UK security consultancy of both physical and
electronic security are carried out for ONS.
"

If the UK Government wanted to give a US company the census data, I suspect that just giving it to them would be a lot easier than getting them to collect the data, pretend that they aren't getting access to it and then nicking it.

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/19/census-boycott-lockheed-martin

No it doesn't. There are civilian applications for technology developed in the defence industry. In this case the technology they are selling is their expertise in running large projects.

Ok, so why can we not just have fewer questions? Surely some basic stuff would suffice? Why do they want to know where we work?

Lockheed Martin did all the data capturing/scanning etc for the 2001 census as well.

I don't see what there is to fuss about tbh.

Anyone who uses any of their local council services (schools, refuse collection, adults services, playgrounds) should think very carefuly before boycotting the census.

Local government funding is based on data collected from the census. I believe that for every person who fails to complete the census, the respective local authority will lose £22,000 in funding over the next 10 years (I.e. Until the next census).

I think that the contract was awarded sometime in 2008 and that, possibly, Lockheed were in charge of the 2001 census as well.
Does anyone know of anyone fined for not completing the last one? It would be a rotten old task, trying to bring all the people to court, would it not?