The 8,514,876.599 km² of the Brazilian territory constitute an additional challenge in the 2010 Census...

The 8,514,876.599 km² of the Brazilian territory constitute an additional challenge in the 2010 Census. In addition to its diverse types of climate and vegetation, the country’s territory is the home of Brazilians who may be living in far-off places, what demands from IBGE bigger efforts in data transfer logistics in this first computerized census operation.

For more than three years IBGE has prepared itself to receive information given by the population, obtained either through surveys conducted by the 191,972 enumerators who will visit all the 58 million Brazilian households, or through the Internet.

Every time a resident answers the questionnaire face-to-face, the enumerator will insert the given information in one of the 220 thousand PDAs (electronic data collector) used in Census 2010. All these data will be encrypted so as to ensure security and confidentiality.

After conducting interviews in households, each enumerator will take the PDA to one of the 7,000 collection units to transfer data – this operation is expected to occur at least once a week. Once in the unit, the enumerator uses a USB cable to connect his PDA to a notebook installed in the place and transfer the collected data.

The person in charge of the data collection unit, after receiving the information collected by several enumerators, gathers all these data and transfers them to IBGE’s Central Processing System. Data transmission is expected to occur daily. It will be done online and, depending on the location, may use a broadband; 2G/3G modems; or even satellites with fixed or mobile antennas: information must be encrypted.

The estimated volume of material to be received by IBGE is 300 to 400 thousand information packages, in five places: Salvador (will receive data from collection units in Bahia), Belo Horizonte (from Minas Gerais), São Paulo (from São Paulo), Porto Alegre (from Rio Grande do Sul) and Rio de Janeiro (which will receive data from collection units in the other 23 Federation Units, besides the questionnaires answered using the Internet).

For the first time, it will be possible to answer the Census on the Internet

Residents of all the 5,565 municipalities in the country will have one more option to answer the Census: the Internet. However, they will need to be visited by and enumerator, tell this person their telephone number and receive from them a sealed envelope containing access codes to open the Census page and questionnaire.

There will be no problem if the lights go out or the Internet is out of service during questionnaire answering. Previously-sent information will have been saved. At a later moment, it will be necessary to inform the access code once again and then proceed with the answering. However, information showing on the screen at the moment the Internet service fails might be lost in this process.

There will be a maximum period of five/ten days for the resident to answer the questionnaire online. In case there is no reply within this time limit, IBGE’ operators will contact this person and request the information. At the same time, the enumerator in charge of that household will visit it once more to collect information face-to-face. The website to answer the Census online is safe, and information will be encrypted before it is transferred to IBGE.

In 2010, almost half of the world population will be censused

Between 2006 and 2014, almost all (93%) of the 236 countries listed by UNO (http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sources/census/censusdates.htm) will conduct Population Censuses. In 137 of them, inhabited by 80% of the world’s population, the Census will take place in 2010 or 2011. In 2010 only, other 67 countries besides Brazil will have a Census. Among them some are American neighbors, such as the USA, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Panama, Argentina, Venezuela and Bolivia; Asian countries such as China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and South Korea; and also Russia , Switzerland, Finland, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Zambia and Papua New Guinea, among others.

Considering UNO’s population data for these 68 countries, almost half (46.8%) of the world’s population will be censused in 2010. In 2011, when the Census will be held in other 69 countries, including most European ones, another one-third of the population (32.9%) will be censused.