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

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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AlecSchueler 4 hours ago | parent | 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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energy123 15 minutes ago | parent | prev | 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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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.