ABS ‘sorry’ as same-sex postal survey hits bum note

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has been forced to apologise for a rather cheeky barcode on its same-sex marriage postal survey.

The ABS said the codes were issued using an algorithm generating more than two quintillion combinations (2,000,000,000,000,000,000) of letters and numbers.

However, on this particular form, the letters and numbers beneath the barcode included an all-caps "BUMSEX" – and the recipient did not fail to notice.

The image was uploaded to Twitter by Adland senior executive Jess Wheeler, who claimed a friend of his received it.

“@ABSStates I don’t think you guys are taking this thing seriously,” he wrote.

ABS apologised for the potentially "offensive" word.

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

"The ABS apologises to the survey recipient and will issue a new form if requested."

Mr Palmer said the ABS would check newly-issued barcodes.

He urged anybody with any concern about their barcode in the meantime should contact the ABS for a new one.

The ABS also recommended Australians not compromise their privacy and the security of their response by publicly displaying the barcode or the eight-digit code beneath.

Citizens are urged to post their form back to the ABS by Friday, October 27, to ensure it is received by the cut-off date of November 7.

Find more information on the postal survey here.