For the first time in a quarter of a century, Germany is counting its people, but cautiously, to avoid rousing long-standing fears of an invasion of privacy. Authorities are so concerned about the potential for a boycott that they have decided to only interview 10 percent of Germans on May 9 and extrapolate the numbers of people and buildings from that data.
To overcome suspicion that has lingered since a 1980s controversy, TV ads are explaining why a modern state needs a census to help it plan enough roads, schools, hospitals and public housing. Censuses have been practiced since the days of ancient Rome and are supposed to take place in Europe's biggest nation every 10 years. But back in 1983, many West Germans revolted against filling in their forms in time-honoured fashion and won a court injunction to stop the census, which many considered overly invasive with questions about residency, cars, income and the state of one's home. The count resumed, after changes to satisfy the judges, in 1987.
Despite the modifications, hundreds of thousands of Germans joined a boycott, alleging that Big Brother was snooping in the most intimate crannies of citizens' lives. The "surveillance state" was seeking "complete knowledge" about everyone, the critics charged.
That fear still resonates today among many Germans, who have protested recently against police scrutinising foreign exchange transactions and telephone call logs and also against Google photographing city buildings for its Street View map service. It has taken unusual boldness to revive the census idea. The Federal Statistics Office, which is conducting the count, says it is the European Union's demand for data that is forcing its hand.
The compromise solution it invented is a scaled-down, sample-based census, which should produce accurate numbers because it will use existing residential registration data as a starting point. For more than a century, Germany has kept track of its entire population, including foreigners and new-born babies, by requiring people to register their place of abode with municipal officials.
Those street rolls will be useful, but statisticians say they do not tell them how educated the population is, how big their homes are or where minorities live. Statisticians say that, by interviewing 7.9 million residents and 17.5 million property owners, then combining the answers with street rolls, they can create a virtual count of the entire population that will be far more accurate than surveys based on random samples.
The population numbers that emerge after the census may prove a political bombshell, demonstrating that municipal address lists are riddled with errors and tend to overstate the true population size. The Statistics Office forecasts that 1.3 million people currently counted on regional population rolls will turn out not to exist. Not only will electoral boundaries have to be redrawn as a result, reducing the weighting of some of the 16 states in federal politics, but poor states also stand to lose some of their per capita national subsidies.
The numbers are also expected to bring increased visibility to ethnic minorities, who are often merely a blur in decision making. Among Germans over the age of 50, the group that remembers the privacy fears of the 1980s, only 57 percent welcome the census today, a survey by a Hamburg pollster, Ears and Eyes, has shown.
Younger people are more relaxed. In the 18-27 age group, 74 percent have a positive attitude to the count. So far, privacy campaigners have failed to gain traction with isolated appeals for boycotts and civil disobedience, but the survey showed 29 percent of Germans overall remain "reluctant" to fill out census questionnaires. A critic, Michael Ebeling, charged that "the people" would no longer have control of data about themselves.
Sabine Bechtold, a senior census official, says, "We'll be extremely responsible in our use of the data." It is not yet clear how hard the statisticians will push sceptics, though failing to fill in the form truthfully is an offence. The only optional question will be about religious belief.
People will be able to answer the questions via the internet if they feel uncomfortable talking to the 80,000 interviewers going door to door. Both Germans and permanent resident aliens must take part. Cutting the number of interviewees may help to head off problems. In the two biggest German cities, Hamburg and Berlin, only 3.6 per cent of residents will be asked to fill in the forms. A new German population count is expected to be announced next year, after all the answers have been analysed and counted.
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