Last year my wife received a phone call, a lady wanted to survey her. She assumed it was a scam call and hanged up the phone. Yet later she did receive a letter inviting her to complete the survey online, and it turned out a legit one.
Some questions seemed okay for a survey (a place of birth, languages spoken, education, profession, rent paid etc)
But some were a bit too precise such as the address and name of an employer, the AHV, the phone number, the name of co-tenant and the relation character, the exact living address).
I do not mind being transperent with the state and we did fill it in properly, but I wonder what is the value of such a survey?
- first, this information is already known to the state, even the most private one
- second, the private uniquely identifying data isn't really summarizable, it's more of a surveillance than a survey?
Not a complain as each state has its rules that need to be followed, just wondering what is your take, thoughts on it?
We participated in this last year, they were quite persistent in calling. Ultimately we just took part in the survey as we figured it was a small way in which we could contribute to society. Swiss data and privacy law is fairly robust so I don't think you need to worry on that front.
You're right that some of the questions were quite personal "do you struggle with money at the end of the month?", "are your neighbours accepting of foreigners?" owtte.
We got some SBB vouchers sent as thanks, at the end it's no big deal.
Indeed, I got a letter for the Swiss census last year from the Swiss Federal Statistics Office, it had the link to the legit website. Got 5 or 10 CHF for SBB
The phone survey is just taxpayer money waste unless they're calling a retirement home. Almost anyone can use a phone, tablet, computer to do this.