Now, StatsCan is seizing its moment. It has developed a plan to amass more independence and authority than ever before, having presented to the Liberals a plan for changes to the law that would make all of its surveys, not just the long-form census, mandatory. It wants the power to be able to force companies to hand over private data, including Internet search records, and credit-card transaction records. Companies, and even other levels of government, would be compelled to hand over any information StatsCan deems important, with fines for any "unreasonable impositions" that "restrict the flow of information for statistical purposes."
In the discussion paper, which the agency shared with The Canadian Press, StatsCan seeks to free itself from government control over how it collects its data, with a whole new list of powers it wants the government to hand over to the chief statistician to free the agency from political influence. It even wants the right to have its own computer infrastructure, because being on the centralized system the rest of the federal bureaucracy uses gives government tech staff "an effective veto" on any StatsCan work, by not providing tech support for it. Statistics Canada would prefer not to answer to anyone, including the guys in IT.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Stats Canada power grab in process!
Statistics Canada is attempting to forge for themselves the Ultimate Iron Rice Bowl.
Yep, they want the power to call you up and demand you tell them any goddamn thing they want to know, or you go to jail.
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I liked the request for separate IT; it's like they are begging for p0wnage.
Canadian Press put a copy of the document on https://www.scribd.com/document/319364233/Statistics-Canada-recommendations-on-new-powers
You can't save the document unless you print it or sign up for their service.
I can see their compliance issues increasing with their call for direct sales data.
The information centers may be secure...but I'm not so sanguine about their own internal network.
They want that credit card data so bad they can nearly taste it. If they get it, I'll be back to carrying cash.
We really don't have any rights anymore. We're reduced to serfs, renting our shacks and sheds from the Lairds.
Looks like Australia is getting in on the fun, too.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/03/oz_stats_bureau_deploys_a_bot_to_harvest_twitter_ids/
In other news, while we must report more, CSE will be reporting less.
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