Behold, the outrage

The last two editions of the census generated precisely three complaints to the privacy commissioner, one of which was resolved without an investigation, another of which was not found to constitute a breach of the Privacy Act.

The census collection process is "inherently privacy-invasive" and the information highly personal, so her office understands why some people find the questions intrusive, she said, but they also see the value and importance of the census. "We’ve always put forward that the questions must be kept to what is strictly necessary for good government and that the information gathered must be protected with the appropriate safeguard," she said, adding that they were satisfied with the measures Statistics Canada had in place.