Imagining that the release is true, this will do strange things for pay bargaining. Imagine if you could look up your colleagues before asking for a rise? On the other hand, I don't recall anything really horrific on that form. Enough data to steal my identity and take out a mortgage in my name, yes. Enough to embarrass me? no...

There may not be anything in there to embarass me but there is unequivocally enough in there for someone to steal my identity and ruin a credit rating I've been working extremely hard to build over the last three years.

Essentially if every person in the UK was open to identity theft then this would be an extremely serious issue. Which it could be.

What info from the census would enable someone to steal an identity? From the looks of it there's only DoB and address in terms of personal info...

Childrens names & DoB, previous addresses, employment status, national insurance number. That info alone is enough for someone experienced to do damage.

Isn't that info relatively easy to obtain from most people anyway? Not on such a large scale of course.

You can obtain that sort of info, by dumpster diving say, but not in anything like the scale.

Imagine that you can get this info and a pretty good idea of salary and lifestyle by running a db search in a few seconds. You can easily focus your attention on the most lucrative propositions and get info from even those that are careful to not put such info out there. Census completion is a legal requirement, everyone should be on one.

Found the questions (pdf): http://www.ons.gov.uk/census/2011-census/2011-census-questio...

I can easily imagine looking up my colleagues salary, because here in Norway you actually can. (Well, you can look at how much tax they pay, and various websites convert that into an estimated salary)

I don't find it particularly interesting, though. People earn around what you expect them to earn.

I don't remember salary being requested on the UK census...

It did ask for the household annual income. It also asks for the job title of the various householders so with a small bit of market info you could easily discern who earns what. Regardless, salary info would be the least of my concerns.

Oh. I can't see that question on

http://www.ons.gov.uk/census/2011-census/2011-census-questio...

You're right. I must have been confusing it with the litany of forms & processes I went through after our son was born. Good find.

Q34-40

Job title, Occupation, Employees managed.

You didn't look very well ;0)>

I remember particularly as this sort of question is hard for me as I don't really have a job title, my occupation is extremely varied.

And what is exactly that is of your concern?

Why would you be terrified? There isn't that much information on the census form - name, age, address, nationality and employer, roughly.

It includes information on income and health, those are the really nasty bits to have leaked as far as I can remember.

Apart from the obvious ID theft risk.

Name and DoB of everyone in a household alone can make it much easier for someone to pose as you to say a credit card company.

Aren't these already in public records in the form of birth certificates and, if you own property, the title deeds?