From The Times 23rd May 2008 pg32

"MPs warn that defence giant could give census secrets to US spy chiefs"

"Two companies, Lockheed Martin, the US defence group, and the German telecommunications company T-Systems, are bidding for the £450 million contract to run the 2011 census."

No runners from the UK then?

Lockheed Martin falls under the US patriot act, so all of the UK's statistics and social demographics would be available to the US intelligence agencies (as if they aren't already). I would have thought the UK and the US intelligence services would have had pretty open networks anyway, at least UK to US, maybe not the other way round.

I don't know whether this news is shocking because of the fact that foreign companies are handling the internal census of my country or the fact that things are that far down the line of unification.

Anyway, hope this snippet is useful.

This kind of contract shouldn't be given to a foreign company, ally or not. It has nothing to do with America or Germany... only British companies should be considered so they can be strictly regulated as to what they do with the data that is gathered.

Strange that Lockheed is also involved in Censuses in Canada and US. Anywhere else? . Strange that the Scotland census is being managed by CACI - a similar company. Hey you don't have to be a tin foil hat conspiracy theorist to smell a rat!