Some years ago when I was at University we had a single seminar on Computer Ethics. In this session we were given a few historical examples to illustrate the points being made. One such example has stuck with me, but I'm not sure how well I've remembered it (or made it up entirely).
I'll retell it here, as I remember it, in the hope that your collective intellect will repair my damaged memories.
During the chaos of the First World War many soldiers were mistakenly buried incorrectly for their religion (Jews buried in Christian marked graves etc.). Understandably people were upset about this, these young men had made the ultimate sacrifice and at least deserved an appropriate burial.
In Poland a census was commissioned to record the name, age address and religious denomination of every citizen, in the hope that should such a tragedy occur again, those who gave their lives could be afforded this dignity at least.
When the Second World War started, and the Nazis wanted to identify every Jew in Poland, they used this census to do so.
This was given of an example of how information can be collected for the very best of reasons, but exploited for the very worst.
I'd like to know if this is in any way ground in reality or not.
Thank you in advance for your help.
[cross-posted to /r/wwii and /r/wwi - apologies if this is bad form]
There were 2 country-wide censuses in 2nd Polish Republic - in 1921 and in 1931. Both were mandatory and asked about religion among other things.
I've never seen arguments that religion was included because of problems with proper burial.
Also - in 2nd RP religious organisations participated in local administration (for example churches kept birth records, Jews had their own districts with local autonomy that for example were responsible for gathering taxes), so it's not like the census information would be the only possible source of that information.
Finally - Germans weren't after religious Jews. They were after people with wrong ethnicity. Many Jews at the time were atheists, or catholics - nazis wanted them dead too.
So I doubt that the story is true. Still a good argument for privacy.