Census Survey

Introduction

The Bermuda Government, Department of Statistics has put out a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a web-based solution to support on-line census.

Below are some thoughts on how Free Software could form the solution.

The census raises many complex issues of privacy, accessibility and access to information. In short, is has all the features of a typical software project.

Free Software Solution

Most, if not all, of the pieces required to build this system already exist as free software.

This software is free in the sense that it gives you freedom. Freedom to examine the software, freedom to look how it works, freedom to change it as you wish.

Freedom to pass the software on to others should you wish, so long as you give them the same freedoms you received.

A prototype can be built from these pieces in around 20 hours of development.

There are Bermudians with the skills to do this and the time to devote to such a project.

In some cases they will be exploring new concepts, but that is the nature of IT.

There are many others they can call on to assist should they need guidance, including the millions of people around the globe who contribute to free software.

Accessibility

Accessibility is often neglected in software.

Many free software tools have good support for accessibility.

Generally, a framework is provided to address a wide range of accessibility issues.

Everyone has different challenges working with computers.

• vision
• hearing
• motor movements
• speech
• language processing
• reading
• writing
• fear
• the software itself
• citizens access to information

Bermuda is an international island. English is the dominant language.

Documents are generally produced in English.

However, the island has many nationalities living here and also has many Bermudians who have travelled and lived abroad.

There are also distinct communities within Bermuda with their own language, culture and history.

And, of course, Bermuda is a popular travel destination, with many nationalities paying visits.

Yet there is very poor support for languages other than English on most Bermuda related websites.

A free software solution would accommodate translations. Further, it would allow anyone to contribute to those translations.

Free software: means you can adapt for differing needs, since you have the code. Without the code you are tied to a third party.

Further others can help you. A free software census solution for Bermuda may be usable in many other juristictions. Bermudians who develop such software would be able to work with others wherever in the world they may be.

Public Access To Information

Census data is invaluable in many ways. It provides data that can guide public policy.

TODO: Anology: vaccination: having your children vaccinated protects them against illness, but also reduces the chance of epidemics breaking out. There are small risks to every vaccination, but the benefits to society can be significant. For example, consider the elimination of polio, a disease that affect large numbers of people in the past.

In the UK there have been censuses since 1831 (may have been earlier).

Collecting the data back in that day was a huge task. At the time it gave vast amounts of information about poplulation sizes, household sizes and the age profile of the population and their occupations.

All the data was hand written. Pages of data might have totals and there were presumably clerks creating aggregate statistics.

Nowadays, genealogists find the census data both fascinating and invaluable as they trace family history.

The UK has been digitising this data over the last few years and making it available on line.

A free software solution to the census would anticipate PATI requests by building access to information into the system.

Rather than wait for PATI requests and have to then examine data to see what should be released, the decisions about what should be released, when and to who will be made up front and built into the solution.

A system can be built that will only release certain information after some specified period.

Some data may need reviewing after some number of years and released or re-sealed based on that review.

Transparency and Privacy

It is assumed that aggregate data from the census will be made freely available to citizens. Our solution will include support for such access.

It is recommended that any data of a sensitive nature be treated appropriately, including the physical security of any computers storing the data.

One possibility is to try to build a system that only stores aggregrate information.

It should also be noted that in a small community like Bermuda aggregate data, especially when combined with other similar data can remove annonynimity.

One recommendation would be to encourage community discussion about the census questions and have the community guide the decisions regarding privacy and access to information.

Collecting more personal data that will be stored in some sort of time capsule for the benefit of future historians and genealogy.

Computer insecurity

In view of all the high profile data breaches that the world has been experiencing over recent months it should be apparent that storing sensitive data on computers is not an easy task.

Our solution will recognise this fact and propose appropriate measures for storing more sensitive data.

However, it would be our recommendation to only collect data that the residents of Bermuda are comfortable in sharing.

Maintenance and Development

With a free software solution future maintenance and development of the software can be performed by anyone with the skills. The local poplulation will have all the tools they need, they just need to learn the skills needed.

Further, a well designed free software census would be usable in other jurisdictions.

If developed here in Bermuda by Bermudians it would create opportunities for the team to work elsewhere in the world.

Free Software Centre

Ownership of code

The government, not the developers would own and code developed for the site.

It should be noted most of the code already exists and is free software.

It is suggested that any code written for the project be itself released as a free software project using the GPL license.

Existing Free Software solutions

http://www.census.gov/data/software.html

Appendix A: Python and Django

Django

Django Quiz

Appendix: Project Jupyter

Humans in different parts of the world speak different languages.

Humans have also developed many different languages for communicating with computers.

Learning these languages can take considerable time and effort.

For most of the history of modern computing, communicating with other languages has been difficult.

In effect, the plethora of languages has worked to Balkanise the IT world.

Project Jupyter is just one project that is helping languages work together.

Jupyter is a tool that supports virtually seamless interoperability between 50 different languages, from python, to perl, C++ to C#, Bash to Brainfuck, erlang to lua, matlab to php.