Next census: personal data to be collected by US defence conglomerate
11 May 2007
Data gathered during the first field test for the upcoming 2011 census will be 'captured' by US Arms company Lockheed Martin. (1)
The Office for National Statistics is running the test in five different local authority areas, covering some 100 000 households in total, on the 13th May 2007. (2)
Unlike the eventual census, taking part in the test is voluntary. It will run in Liverpool, Camden, Bath and North East Somerset, Carmarthenshire and Stoke-on-Trent.
Green Party Principal Speaker, Siân Berry, who lives in Camden, is urging people to boycott the census. She said: "With more sensitive information than ever being collected in the next national census, do we really want data about everyone in the UK being given to a foreign arms company?
"Why is the census being contracted out anyway? The government should take proper care of information about us.
"It's a bad sign of the developing database state, and shows that ID cards could lead to our identities being under the control of some very doubtful corporations.
"The majority of Lockheed Martin's business is with the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. federal government agencies. They provide missiles and fire control, naval systems, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance services (ISR). They claim to provide 'information necessary to anticipate and monitor worldwide crises by combining a variety of ISR systems into the vision of the global information network.' (3)
"This kind of firm should not be gathering sensitive data on the British public."
Siân also responded to comments from the Office of National Statistics and Lockheed Martin:
"The only responsible and prudent thing to do in this situation is to boycott the test census. Non-participation sends a signal to the government that we want more controls on who processes information about us.
"A fundamental tenet of census-taking is that the people filling in the forms should trust that they are doing so in privacy, to ensure they give accurate information. Involving a company with the dubious connections of Lockheed Martin could easily undermine public confidence, and so devalue the worth of the information collected."
The Office of National Statistics and Lockheed Martin have responded to Siân's comments online at www.newstatesman.com/200705080005.
