Live stream: Census officials face Senate committee

Officials responsible for the troubled national census will front a Senate committee today to explain what went wrong and why.

The Senate economics references committee is inquiring into the preparations for the census, held on August 9, and problems which caused the website to be shut down.

The public hearing began at 9.40am AEDT. Tap the play button above to watch live.

The 2016 Census was controversial because it sought the names of all respondents, prompting concerns about privacy of information.

That apparently prompted a series of four cyber attacks on the census website which led to it being down shut.

Also giving evidence to the inquiry will be Alastair MacGibbon, the special adviser to the prime minister on cyber security.

In estimates committee hearings last week, Australian Bureau of Statistics chief statistician David Kalisch acknowledged it made a number of poor judgments ahead of the census.

However, the ABS remains confident the census will still produce high-quality data, despite the problems.

With AAP.