Surely any such foreign occupier would just demand the unredacted data?

throwawayffffas 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Exactly why a government may refrain from collecting such data, as it is not even relevant in any kind of policy decision.

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0xbadcafebee 3 hours ago | parent [-]

What, religious data? Are you serious? That's one of the most critical things they can track about their citizens.

Let's say your town has a lot of pig farmers. The pig farmers are afraid their business is diminishing. So they lobby the local government to put a tax on chicken and beef, to encourage more pork consumption. Which local officials might be inclined to do for economic reasons. But then you collect religious data, and it turns out 50% of the population is Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu. So half the population now has to pay a tax, which is effectively a tax on their religion, because their religious belief says they can't eat pork.

This is a made up example, but the point is that you need to know about your citizens so you can make just laws that respect those citizens (and encourage businesses, job training, etc based on demographics). It's why we have a census.

	▲	harrall 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Laws aren’t made that way and laws made that way usually aren’t good. Like a farmer writing rules for people in the city or vice versa purely based on what they think the other side wants. It’s much better if the farmers directly tell you what they want and the city folk tell you what they want and together they figure it out. Census details is great for understanding long term trends. It’s not to be used directly for decision making, even if the intention is good, and the intentions have also been very bad.
	▲	adastra22 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Surely you know the history being referenced here.

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gambiting 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes, which is why the government shouldn't have this data at all in the first place.

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monitorlizard 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Say you get your way, and, for fear of Mark Carney rolling the tanks in and taking over North America, the US stops collecting any data on its citizens. How is the IRS supposed to know how much tax to expect from you? How is SNAP supposed to determine your eligibility? How is unemployment supposed to know if you're ripping them off or not? Data privacy is a real concern, but you need PII to run government services effectively. Running a state without collecting PII is like running a hospital without collecting any.

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energy123 5 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> for fear of Mark Carney rolling the tanks in and taking over North America

You're saying it's farfetched, yet census data was already used as a tool to assist an extermination campaign:

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/rearvision/the-dark-s...

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AlecSchueler 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> How is the IRS supposed to know how much tax to expect from you? How is SNAP supposed to determine your eligibility? How is unemployment supposed to know if you're ripping them off or not?

How does knowing your religious affiliation help them with any of this?

	▲	LoganDark 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		"Collecting data" is what helps them.

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dwaltrip 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They should follow the principle of least privilege. Why not use differential privacy?

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gambiting 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't know why you understood my comment as saying government shouldn't have any data. I specifically replied to the comment about religion - there's no reason for the government to collect any data about that from individuals. Churches can report how many members they have if they want to. But it shouldn't be a question on the census.

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iso1631 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's where you hope people like Rene Carmille are around. S