Each household is assigned a specific code number printed
on the form. It doubles as a log-in password for the World
Wide Web site. Whoever logs in will then be able to type in
the answers to the questions for anyone who lives in the
home.
What, me worry?
Full story
Mar 1, 2000 - 01:38 AM
A Census First: Answering Surveys
Over the Internet
By Genaro C. Armas
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Census Bureau is launching a new
cyberspace option this year, trying to get more Americans to
respond to their questionnaires by letting anybody who
wishes to answer them over the Internet.
Instead of the traditional method of filling out forms by hand
and dropping them in the mailbox, which progressively fewer
people have done over the last three surveys, respondents
will be able to log onto the Census Bureau's Web site and
answer the government's questions with the click of a mouse.
It's unclear whether allowing forms to be returned via the
Internet for the first time will get more people to respond. The
same worries over privacy and confidentiality that deter some
people from mailing back forms also exist in cyberspace.
And that's especially true in light of recent hacker attacks
against sites like Yahoo! and eBay, said former Census
Bureau director Martha Farnsworth Riche, who helped
develop the Internet-response system.
"My one concern is people's concerns about privacy, and
people are particularly concerned about the broad use of the
census information," she said. Census officials stress that all
information is kept confidential and not shared with other
government agencies.
In addition, mail response rates have declined from 78
percent of households in 1970, to 70 percent in 1980, to 65
percent in 1990. Officials estimate the rate will dip to 61
percent this year.
Census Day is April 1, meaning all the information requested
by the government concerns the people living in the home
that day.
The data are critical for the reapportionment of
congressional seats as well as distribution of federal and
state funds. In general, the more people a city or town has,
the more money it gets.
"This will be a first, determining the individuals who use the
mail and people who use the Internet," said John Thompson,
director of census operations.
Thompson hopes the bureau's first-ever paid advertising
campaign, which costs $167 million, as well as the new
Internet option boosts the response rates. At the least, it
could help reduce the expense of sending census-takers to
homes that do not respond at all. A General Accounting
Office report estimated that every 1 percent increase in
workload could add at least $34 million to the survey's
budget.
Thompson said they expect 7 million of the nation's 115
million households to answer their questionnaires on the
Internet; the system can handle up to 800,000 users per
hour.
Only the census short form - which contains just seven
questions - will be answerable over the Internet, at
www.census.gov. A more detailed, 53-question long form, to
be sent to about 19 million homes, gathers more information
through a scientifically random sample. The long form will be
answerable only by mail.
Each household is assigned a specific code number printed
on the form. It doubles as a log-in password for the World
Wide Web site. Whoever logs in will then be able to type in
the answers to the questions for anyone who lives in the
home.
"It makes it more easily accessible. It's a convenience," Riche
said.
Although the bureau is providing that option, it would
nevertheless like to get as many forms back by mail as
possible, Thompson said. That provides the more accurate
information and is less prone to error or change by a third
party, he said.
"We think the Internet should be used as a tool, but to what
extent, the jury is still out," said Chip Walker, spokesman for
Rep. Dan Miller, R-Fla., who chairs the House Government
Reform Committee's census panel. "There are certainly
issues over confidentiality as well as over what level of
processing they can handle via the hardware and
personnel."
J. Gary Doyle, a Census Bureau assistant division chief who
oversees the site, called the system "very secure."
"We've watched what has happened on other sites, and we
feel very comfortable," he said.
