17 August 2006

Beware the bogus census collectors

| Kerces
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics has put out a warning about bogus census collectors in Canberra.

It appears some people have been wandering around collecting people’s census forms who aren’t official collectors. Why anyone would want to do this is beyond me (but then I wasn’t here and didn’t get to see said census form and what it asked).

The ABS has told the police about the matter. They also say that you can tell if your census collector is real or not by their identification badge and bright yellow satchel.

“Do not hand over your completed Census form unless you see [the official id card],” ACT census manager Alan Masters warned. “Collectors will also be working from 8.00am to 8.30pm on weekdays or 9.00am to 8.30pm on weekends. Be alert if someone visits you outside of these hours.”

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Good one. As long as they don’t find out about the secret jungle laboratory…

Shhh, Mr Evil, remember the tasers……

The thing I love about secret spy bases is how the hell can it be secret if one publicises its existence. Secondly if the place is so damn secret surely the activity that goes on would also be secret ? Thirdly why on earth would you use microfilm in this day and age. Gotta love the paranoid 🙂

Ari, I read on the net at paranoia.com that they actually microfilm all those personal details and send it to that secret spy base in Belconnen.

Just don’t tell anyone I told you that!

They ask that stuff simply to make easier for themselves when they do the “Post Enumeration Survey” – this is a more detailed mini-census where they really dig into the lives of a sub-group of the population and then use the results to check the validity of the main census.

This really gives you faith in the ABS constant reassurances that all person information is safe with them, when they can’t even get their shit together to make sure the things are collected properly!

Is it just me, or does anyone else here think it’s kind of unneccessary for the ABS to be asking for your name and address, when supposedly the details are only for statistical research?

Did they wave their little card at you as they fell under a rain of blows?

Good on yas! I just went and smacked out one of the real ones!!

Not that I’d expect a bunch of pen pushers to think of this but wouldn’t it make sense to at least show a very small example of what the “Official ID card” looks like? Anyone with a decent PC can knock up an ‘official’ looking ID card within minutes these days. Even if they decided to copy the small example it’ll still take a lot longer than doing one freestyle.

as has already been said.
a census form gives you a pretty good idea of the value of a property, and when its likely to be empty (ie, if it says 2 people live there, and they each work 40 hours a week, and have an income of 50K each, you can establish they are likely not home during the day. etc.

Yeah, like Binker said, there’s more than enough info in those forms to pull a pretty complete identity theft job – name, address, birth date, work location etc. Not a bad plan, as crimes go.

You could work out how much money a household earns, when the ppl are home, kind of info useful if you wanted to rob a joint

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