It only took two days – but finally the Australian Bureau of Statistics managed to bring the census website back online Thursday afternoon.
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The victim of nameless, faceless international hackers, the census site fell over in dramatic fashion on Tuesday night just as millions of Australians prepared to log on.
Given what transpired, it is hard to believe the first online census was five years and more than $10 million in the making.
It’s even more difficult to believe that with all that time to plan, that it could fall victim to hackers at all.
Where were the safeguards to prevent such a catastrophe? Remember, it wasn’t some small-time computer company putting this thing together. It was IBM.
Incredibly, the attacks took everyone by surprise, including the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who just 30 minutes before the site was taken down by the ABS, took to social media to spruik to all Australians just how painless and simple the online census was to complete.
One can only assume he now regrets that decision. It’s not a good career move to make a PM look presumptuous.
Quite rightfully, the PM and his senior ministers were critical of the ABS and its handling of the 2016 census.
Mr Turnbull said the ABS should have been better prepared for this type of situation. And he’s right. One would have assumed that the system would have been protected.
It’s hard to see, however, what other options the ABS had other than to take the site offline as soon as it came under attack on Tuesday night.
Surely the protection and integrity of the personal information of those people who had already completed the census should have taken precedence.
Regardless of how long it took to get the site back up and running, there were always going to be repercussions following Tuesday night’s events.
First and foremost, the ABS has lost the confidence of the Australian public.
Any notion that Australia was ready to take a bold step into the 21st century and adopt online voting has now well and truly been shattered in one fell swoop.
People just won’t trust in the integrity of the system after this. It will take a great deal of time before they do.
And to be honest, who can blame them?
