Anxiety and reservations from the public about letting strangers into their homes as Census 2022 continues

Census 2022 having kicked off this week, there’s been some anxiety and reservations from the public about letting strangers into their homes who ask a lot of personal questions.

The population count collects data about our socio-economic dynamics, living conditions and income, which ultimately assists in identifying problem areas such as service delivery, housing and unemployment.

There are a lot of new changes to this fourth Census, including technology and safety and security.

For some residents, the Census instills anxiety. In the current climate of safety and security issues, people are bound to be apprehensive about letting a stranger into their home, albeit that it’s for an official government purpose.

Stats SA says it has set up several verification options for residents to identify their field works.

Census 2022 I Task of counting SA’s population in full swing:

With technology being so advanced compared to past census exercises, there are fairly easy ways to identify and verify workers both online and via a call centre.

Lindy Langenhoven, Stats SA District Manager for the Garden Route and Central Karoo region, says “The field work verification system can identify the field workers where if you approach the house and the household, in terms of safety they want to make sure that the person is actually working for Stats SA, they can check on our website, www,statssa.gov.za, and verify if the field worker is working for Stats SA.”

Since we’re still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, home visits and face to face surveys can also be eliminated with online or telephonic surveys.

Langenhoven says, “They can choose the option either to do enumeration where they do the interview themselves online, data free, or they can actually do it to request the option to go telephonically and then the telephone operator will call them. They will also get a unique code in terms of the telephone operator. The last option is face to face where people visit the household and do the enumeration on the tablet.”

The Census process is also digital and uses new technology to speed up the process of data collection.

Those wanting to complete their own enumeration, have until Saturday to register online.