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Half of Australians missing nation's vexed online census

Xinhua, August 18, 2016 Adjust font size:

Just half of all Australian households have completed the nation's first online census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has said, nine days after it was supposed to be completed.

The national survey was scheduled to be filled out on the evening of Aug. 9, however overloaded servers and the threat of a cyber-attack forced the government to shut down the website for 40 hours until Aug. 11.

Since the website was reinstated last Thursday, just half of all households have completed the online form, prompting the ABS to urge remaining Australians yet to complete the census to do so as quickly as possible.

On Thursday, ABS head Duncan Young said the website had been secured and was working smoothly, and warned Australians that if it slips their mind before the Sept. 23 deadline, they will be fined up to 140 U.S dollars.

"We thank the many Australians who have already completed the census and we apologize again to everyone for the inconvenience caused on census night," Young said in a statement.

"If you have not completed the census, we remind you to complete it as soon as possible. Your information is safe and you won't be fined for completing it after census night, but it is important to complete the form either online or in paper as soon as possible."

The ABS has been forced to launch an awareness campaign about the census in order to remind people to fill out the national survey.

According to the government, just over 5 million physical or online forms have been submitted, up from the 2.3 million completed on August 9 before the site went down. If the ABS does not receive at least two million more forms, the census will be deemed a failure. Endit