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I reckon most of us, when we fill out the census papers, assume that the information we’re providing won’t end up in the wrong hands.  

I know there are some people who don't feel like that. People who just don't want to give personal information to anyone - especially the government. Or the state.  

The Wizard of Christchurch was known over the years for refusing to take part in the census. And, in more recent years, we’ve had people who just can’t be bothered. They’re the ones who ended up getting things like Warriors tickets and pressie cards to do what the rest of us just do anyway.  

But I reckon after these revelations that have come out over the last 24 hours, it’s going to take more than tickets to sports matches and shopping vouchers to get people involved next time the census comes around.  

What’s more, I think the public service has got a major job on its hands to restore public trust. In fact, that may turn out to be the biggest job the recently new head of the public service —Sir Brian Roche— has on is plate.  

Because once you lose trust, it’s very hard to restore it.  

I haven’t lost trust (not yet anyway), but I’m certainly losing confidence in the public service when it comes to keeping my information secure.

And this latest example could actually be the tipping point for me.   

But essentially, an inquiry has found multiple flaws in the way public service agencies protected personal information provided to third party contractors hired to help with the 2023 Census and a Covid vaccination drive.

We don't know whether any of this personal information was “misused”, but what we do know is that, as Sir Brian puts it, “the gate was left open” for it to be misused.  

And what Sir Brian calls “very sobering reading” could be about to get worse.  

That’s because there are other investigations into how other government agencies including the police, the Serious Fraud Office and the privacy commissioner use our personal information.

So what impact is going to have an impact on your trust in the public service and is it going to have an impact on your willingness to share personal information with the state?

Let me quote Sir Brian directly, because there are two words that I think are the focus for us.  

He says: "The report makes for very sobering reading. It raises a number of issues that go to the core of the confidence and trust required to maintain the integrity and sanctity of information entrusted to government agencies.”

The two key words there are trust and confidence.  

Here’s where I’m at with that. Sir Brian says the public service has pretty much failed to keep up with technological changes. And what he's getting at is that it is so much easier these days to share information.  

For example, if someone working in the public service can access someone’s information, what is there to stop them sending that around a few people?  

Not much.  

And when I heard Sir Brian talking about that, that is when I decided that the public service still has my trust. If I said to you that I didn’t trust them, that would be because I believed that there were public sector workers helping themselves to my personal information en masse and doing what they want with it. Intentionally.  

But I don’t think that, even after the revelations of the past 24 hours.  

But what I do think is that it has become so much easier for information to be passed on at the click of a mouse at lightning speed and that’s where I think the public service has been found to be pretty hopeless.  

So for me, I still trust the public sector, but my confidence in it is another story.