'Rude' Words Appear By Mistake On Postal Survey Forms

Oh dear.


Article heading image for 'Rude' Words Appear By Mistake On Postal Survey Forms

@JackMorphet - Twitter

There are reports that an oversight from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has resulted in some 'rude' words appearing in the barcodes of the same-sex marriage postal survey forms.

According to the Daily Mail, one person has posted about their barcode, which contains the word 'bumsex' as a part of the unique code used to identify each citizen for the ballot.

The ABS has since responded, saying that it was an error in the algorithm system.

"The ABS acknowledges that in issuing 16 million barcodes it did not check and remove words and phrases that may be offensive," ABS deputy statistician Johnathan Palmer said in a statement.

The codes were issued using an algorithm generating more than two quintillion combinations of letters and numbers in order to generate highly secure barcodes."

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20 September 2017




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