Wednesday, March 01, 2000
Census plans to take answers online
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Census Bureau this year will give Americans the choice of answering their census questionnaires over the Internet, and hopes the new option will prompt more people to respond to the once-a-decade survey.
With the click of a mouse, respondents Will be able to log on to the Census Bureau's Web site and answer the government's questions — How old you are? What ethnicity are you? — without having to drop the form in the mailbox.
But it's unclear whether allowing forms to be returned for the first time through cyberspace will get more people to respond.
Mail response rates have declined in each of the last three surveys, from 78 percent of households in 1970, to 70 percent in 1980, to 65 percent in 1990. Officials estimate that 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 is 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.
“We'd be happy if everybody mailed back their questionnaire. It would make the census more accurate,” said John Thompson, director of census operations. “This will be a first, determining the individuals who use the mail and people who use the Internet.”
But worries over privacy and confidentiality that make some people wary about returning forms in the first place may be just as prevalent when submitting answers over the Internet, especially in light of recent hacker attacks against popular Web sites such as Yahoo! and eBay, said Martha Farnsworth Riche, a former Census Bureau director who helped develop its 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.
Mr. Thompson hopes the bureau's first-ever paid advertising campaign, which costs $167 million, and the option of answering the questionnaire through the Internet, motivates more people to respond.
Only the seven-question short form will be answerable over the Internet at www.census.gov. The far more detailed, 53-question long form, to be sent to about 19 million homes, will be answerable only by mail.
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