Today, someone from National Statistics Service of Greece called us for various details about the income, house etc etc… The situation is outrageous. We live in 2012 and people research these statistics via phone? How can you verify whether someone is telling the truth? Are there any liabilities? How can you devise strategies if your paid collection of data is unreliable? The person on the line admitted that they use a sample of the residents at least in our area, I guess in order to decrease the costs.

People are employed in an almost bankrupt country to ask about details that could be obtained automatically by investing in new technologies and a better internal communication between public agencies.

I wonder who is the mastermind behind the decision of the phone interviews and not implementing a system that could query the important data from existing databases. Why we should disclose any piece of information to anyone directly if there are systems which could guarantee a notion of privacy, are cheaper, more reliable, faster and could be reused for a minimal cost?

On the other hand, there are public services which need more people. Hospitals, schools etc etc.