THE RIGHT TO BE COUNTED

or the right to be left alone

by Zara Rahman @zararah

SUMMARY

• Why count?

• Why not count?

• Middle ground: a census?

• Privatisation

WHY COUNT?

http://www.unicef.org/sowc2014/numbers/

–Johnny Appleseed

“Type a quote here.”

INDIA-BANGLADESH BORDER

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database

http://www.gender-balance.org/

• notice patterns

• identify needs and gaps in service delivery

• accurate dissemination of public funds

• stronger advocacy

WHY COUNT?

WHY NOT COUNT?

INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE AMERICANS IN WWII

ROHINGYA IN BANGLADESH

Source: VOAnews

FORCED SEX WORKER REGISTRATION

A CENSUS AS A BASELINE

Map showing countries where the ethnicity or race of people was enumerated at least in one census since 1991

CC-BY-SA 3.0 - Yerevenci, Wikipedia

Photo by Kaspar Metz, CC-BY-NC

GERMANY

CENSUS = HIGHLY SENSITIVE

so who do we trust to carry it out?

LOCKHEED MARTIN• Aerospace and Defense

• Information Technology

• Space exploration

• Emerging Technologies

• 80% of its work for the US defence department

- UK Office for National Statistics, "Data security and the US Patriot Act"

“it is a criminal offence to disclose personal census data and is punishable by a fine and/or up to two years in prison. All census data is owned by ONS

and all of the legal undertakings of confidentiality of personal census information will apply to both

ONS and any contractors.”

LOCKHEED MARTIN - CENSUS ACTIVITIES

• US: 2000, 2010

• UK: 2001, 2011

• Canada: 2006, 2011

https://bobbygill.co.uk

PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

G4S IN UK

• Passenger profiling at airports

• electronic monitoring of previous offenders

• domestic violence monitoring

• CCTV at train stations

• 8 children's homes

• police services support

• accommodation for asylum seekers

• pre-departure accommodation for people to be repatriated

• hospital catering services

• school catering services

• prisons

What does this mean for us?

CONCLUSION

• Transparency

• Choice

• Trust

TRANSPARENCY

• who is collecting it?

• who has access to it?

• who owns it?

CHOICE

• is there an option to not be in the data?

• …and is this a real option?

TRUST

• do we believe the other answers?

• might this change in the future?

thank you!mail@zararah.net

@zararah