"NY" wrote in message
...
"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Interesting that Australia chose to destroy that personal information
permanently, rather than just embargo it for a period of time (eg 100
years, as in the UK) so as to prevent (to a good approximation) any
information being released about people who are still living.

Yeah, it is always controversial here whether we should
keep doing that, because it does mean that historical
research is much harder with well known people etc.

Interesting how different countries have very different policies on
privacy and confidentiality.

Yeah, most obviously with the european approach
of having to notify the cops when you move etc.

Has it always been the case that Australia has forbidden access to
censuses, right from the first census which I imagine was some time in the
1800s?

No, our system is complicated by the fact that we
were separate colonys until federation in 1901.

It was only the national census that took that approach.

Its been claimed that it was due to some not wanting
it to be possible to check who had convict ancestors
but thats quite a stretch and most are happy to claim
their convict ancestors now.

Or did they initially have a free-access-after-an-
embargo-period policy, and only later tighten up the security for
subsequent censuses?

Yes.

It's like different countries' rules on the use of dashcams - and indeed
photography of any sort in a public place.

Yep, and the stupidity you lot let your media get up to
with it being legal to have ****ing great ladders chained
to someone's front wall so those arseholes can perve
over the wall at whats going on behind the wall etc.

Some countries ban photography in or of transport (no photos of trains and
railway stations, or of planes and airports). Some countries totally ban
the use (or even possession) of dashcams; some say that the footage must
be deleted immediately afterwards unless it's kept for a specific
insurance claim (ie you can't use it to document a route that you are
driving); some (like the UK) are very relaxed about what you can use
dashcam footage for, and can even post it on Youtube etc (*).

And very different rules on what your
home surveillance cameras can look at.

And you lot allow your authoritys to have ANPR cameras
at a very high density so the authoritys can keep track of
where you have been most of the time.

Some countries totally ban Google Streetview; others just require than
faces and car numbers are blurred-out. My feeling is that you shouldn't do
anything "in public" (ie outside the boundary of your house and garden)
that you'd be embarrassed about seeing on Youtube or Streetview: you
expect to be able to bonk or walk around naked anywhere within your house
(maybe with the curtains closed!) and perhaps in a very secluded
not-overlooked part of your garden - but nowhere else. (**)

The blurring-out of car numbers on Streetview is a real pain because it
also blurs out house numbers.

Many of ours dont bother with readable house numbers.
I dont myself.

I have to visit a lot of people at home, and once I have their address I
usually look for their house on Streetview so I know what I will be
looking for when I'm driving there later on.

We do it mostly with the garage sales, trying to work out in
advance which houses we have been to previously, but the local
newspaper advices most advertisers to not include the street
number so buggers like us cant show up the day before etc.

But the algorithms that blur out car numbers often blur out signs with
house numbers and names, so sometimes it's necessary to "walk" up and down
the street for a house that *does* have a decipherable number, and then
count backwards from there.

Our house numbers are mostly on the external letterboxes
that are just behind the footpath if there is a footpath so
you can mostly see it from the car when driving past.

And google maps is pretty accurate with getting you
right to the door if you do have a street number.

If Streetview went on the day that people put their dustbins out, that is
a bonus because many people have large figures on their bins to make sure
they are returned to the correct house.

Yeah ours are the same but I dont recall they caught any
on our street view and they only did one complete one
now 10 years ago. With a very superficial quick zoom
thru of the main roads a year or so ago and didnt even
bother with the new streets added since last time.

Then there's the issue of reporting suspects' identities when they've been
arrested and/or are being tried. Some countries have total anonymity. The
general policy in the UK is that identities are kept secret when someone
has only been arrested,

That didnt happen with Barrymore and the others.

and then reported if they are charged and it goes to trial.

And the krauts dont even allow it with convictions.

We dont with a few unusual cases, mostly with
crimes against kids where the kids could be
identified if the criminal is named after conviction.

But there's the thorny issue of revealing the identities of rape suspects,
because human nature is such that even if someone is found not guilty,
people assume that they may have been guilty all along but it couldn't be
proved. It's particularly a problem where the accusation of rape was
malicious - perhaps even provably so - but the suspect's identity is
already known and can never become un-known if it was proved to be
malicious. I'd say that if it is proved to be malicious, the victim's
right to anonymity (which is normally needed) should be removed.

Yeah, I agree.

(*) Though it does work both ways. Apparently if the police see that you
have a dashcam when you are involved in an accident, they can demand the
footage, on pain of a "with-holding information" charge if you refuse, to
see how *you* were driving beforehand, as well as seeing how the other
driver was driving.

Yeah, thats why I prefer to have an invisible dashcam.

Not sure what our law is on demanding access to the footage.

Not sure how yours fits with not having to say anything
and its up to the cops to prove you are guilty.

(**) The only time I've gone naked in public was on a very private beach
on the Isle of Wight which is known to be an unofficial nudist beach. And
my wife and I did feel a bit weird initially getting our kit off to
sunbathe, with other people all around.

Never been into that sort of thing myself.

Seeing people playing volleyball etc with all their relevant bits flopping
around, decidedly unnerving. I gather that there is an unwritten "no
staring or ogling" rule ;-) And definitely no long camera lenses...

Gets a bit tricky with modern mobile phones. Spose they frown
on using the phones at all and the lack of pockets could be tricky
but then some of the sports nuts keep them on arm bands.