[Also keep your eyes open for a TV report due to air on Edmonton CBC today which I hope will cover any final details, such as perhaps whether Lockheed is still involved in software, etc., since we're hearing conflicting reports.]

[fair use only]

StatsCan kills census deal over privacy concerns

Firm has close ties to U.S. defence interests

Joe Paraskevas

The Ottawa Citizen

Sunday, May 09, 2004

The federal government, bowing to public and political pressure, has
broken a contract with the Canadian arm of U.S. aerospace giant Lockheed
Martin for work on the next national census.

The New Democratic Party and other organizations had lobbied the
government for months to drop its plans to have the Kanata-based company
provide services for the 2006 national survey and a mini-census, out of
concerns private information of Canadians could be used by an
organization with close ties to United States defence interests.

The director of the 2006 census, which is produced by Statistics Canada,
confirmed Friday those concerns drove the government to pull out of its
agreement with Lockheed Martin.

"There were a number of concerns expressed, perception issues around
confidentiality and privacy," said Anil Arora. "We wouldn't want to
subject even the slightest perception that the census was in any way
subject to any of those concerns, so to do away with that we decided
that it would be Statistics Canada employees that would actually handle
and process the census questionnaires in 2006."

A spokesman for Lockheed Martin could not be reached for comment.

The next census will involve about 13.6 million households and will be
the first to be offered online.
About 20 per cent of respondents are expected to file electronically,
Mr. Arora said.

Public concerns were unwarranted, he added, because census work would be
conducted under security in Statistics Canada facilities with no
external connections through which information could leak.

But the NDP exulted in the government's reversal.

"Hats off ... to all those who persuaded Statistics Canada that the
integrity of the census was at stake," said NDP parliamentary leader
Bill Blaikie in the House of Commons.

The government would sustain a penalty "in the tens of thousands of
dollars," for breaking the second phase of its three-phase contract with
Lockheed Martin, Mr. Arora said.

The phase involved the conducting of a mini-census of 300,000 homes and
used as a preparatory step before the 2006 main census. The government
would not be penalized for breaking the third phase of the contract,
which actually involved the main census.

The first phase of the contract -- in which baselines for the census
were established -- has already been completed.

Lockheed Martin had been selected in 2001 among other bidders, marking
the first time census software had been purchased from the private
sector.