Epic fail. Woeful. A debacle.
That's how cyber security and privacy experts have described the census, which was marred by a series of attacks and widespread fears about data use.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics shut down the online survey after a series of distributed denial-of-service events, or DDOS, on Tuesday night.
The minister responsible for the census, Michael McCormack, insisted it wasn't an attack, rather an attempt to "frustrate" the collection of data from millions of Australians.
It came after the ABS had fended off privacy and security criticisms after announcing it would keep names and addresses for four years to link to other government data.
"This has been a bit of a debacle, even before last night," University of Melbourne cyber security expert Suelette Dreyfus told AAP.
"There's been a lack of concern about the very real privacy issues raised by numerous senators, a previous Australian statistician and former deputy privacy commissioner."
She referred to Tuesday night's events as an "epic fail" and questioned the government's insistence that the DDOS attacks weren't actual attacks.
"It's very confusing to say it's not an attack but then to say it's a DDOS attack. Which is it?
"If it's not an attack, why swing into a set of protocols to deal with an attack?"
Former NSW deputy privacy commissioner Anna Johnston said the fiasco vindicated the concerns of critics, including Senator Nick Xenophon, who had been brushed off as tinfoil-hat wearers.
"I think it shows woeful disregard for Australian people's privacy and data protection and suggests to me they have been, and still are, unprepared for the complexity of an online census," Ms Johnston said.
Australia's Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim will investigate the cyber attacks.
A geoblocking service - one of the main defences used against denial of service - fell over, exacerbating the situation, government cyber security adviser Alastair MacGibbon said.
"The attack was no more significant than the types of attacks we would see all the time against Australian government systems. It's just that there was a confluence of events," he said.
