Australians are being urged to allow personal details from a national census to be stored on microfilm for future historians, but privacy groups protested that the records could be abused.
An army of 30,000 people will deliver 12 million forms over the next two weeks for Australia's five-yearly census, asking 50 questions about relationships, jobs, homes and Internet use.
Previous census forms were pulped to ensure privacy. But the latest survey includes a question seeking permission to store personal details for 99 years.
"Holding information securely is not a promise the government can keep," civil liberties lobbyist Greg Connellan told Reuters. "We all know legislation can be changed and governments change.
"Governments now collect masses of information about us and pass it on to a third party," said Connellan, vice-president of Australia's Council for Civil Liberties. Financial Services Minister Joe Hockey encouraged Australians to agree to have their personal data stored.
"This is a gift from the people of this century to the people of the next century," said Hockey at the launch of the census. "Every Australian has the chance to be a part of history."
Historical snapshot
Census programme head John Struik said the survey of Australia's 19.4 million people was harmless and would offer social researchers and historians a valuable snapshot of 2001.
"In the 1950s we had to include questions asking things like do you have a flush toilet in your home and now we are asking people for the first time if they have the Internet at home," Struik told Reuters.
And genealogical groups said they hoped up to 90 percent of people would agree to have their answers stored. Nick Vine Hall, a member of the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisation, said Australia should follow countries such as the United States and Britain, which were releasing census details from the year 1900 on to the Internet.
"I see it as a chance to capture our emerging identity," Vine told Reuters. But civil liberties groups said the latest census is far more invasive than other tallies taken since the first boat-load of convicts settled at Sydney Cove in 1788. Connellan said the 13 surveys since 1911 had allowed governments to ask increasingly detailed questions.
"We are concerned a trend will develop where people will agree to details being kept and the nature of that information becomes more and more sensitive," he said.
