The US Census is Harmless

SamRatan1 April 08, 2010

Should we be worried that the US Government is collecting data from all residents for the latest census? Questions that simply require answers to the number of people, their ethnicity, gender and status of their abode appear to raise the hackles of many. Is this a knee jerk reaction or the incisive ability of some to recognize a hidden hand that appears to intrude into our homes and invade our privacy under a pretext?

As a comparison there are more intrusive laws that have been approved by Congress under the Patriot Act. The TSA for e.g. uses a system that collects passenger data such as frequent flyer mileage, special meal request, address, email and telephone number and a host of other information. With data mining and profiling, virtual personae are constructed providing an image that equates to a virtual x-ray screening of the person. What a lot of people seem to oversee is that it is an easy task for any governmental agency to simply join all the independent data that is available today to have a complete insight of the person in question, something that many intelligence agencies practice today.

The mammoth Indian Census that is now in progress is far more detailed and even collects fingerprints and takes photos of all residents. Understandably, the exercise in India has a different history, needs and purpose – The fingerprints and photos will presumably serve as a data pool to uniquely identify people for the issue of UIDs (Unique Identity Number) to all.

The fact that the Census Bureau is using an open, public and unconnected method to independently collect data should put us at ease. The time to really worry is when we no longer have censuses, because then it would mean that data is pooled from various sources both private and commercial for profiling. From that point onward, it would be a small step to George Orwell’s 1984, albeit a few decades later.