Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Exploring the Need for Blockchain-Based National Population Census

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Information Systems (EMCIS 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 437))

Abstract

National population census provides the basis for governments’ financial, economic, health and education policies for its populace. It plays a vital role in mapping a country’s growth and financial trajectories and it is the single most valuable and shared resource among government departments and apparatuses. The centralized, traditional methodologies currently in use are faced with several challenges including and not limited to high costs, privacy issues, enumerating unsafe areas and reduced cooperation. This research aims to analyze through a systematic literature review the drawbacks and challenges of the current traditional methodologies used in housing and population census to identify if a decentralized system would assist in mitigating them. The drawbacks identified are population coverage, ethnic and racial discrimination, privacy concerns, census data distribution, cost of census, and cooperation and participation. The research, even though at an embryonic stage, shows that blockchain-based solutions may be a candidate for solving several of the above mentioned challenges while laying at the same time the foundations of our research on blockchain-based systems for tackling with other challenges faced within census such as that of the missing people.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. United Nations: Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses. Department of Economic and Social Affairs Statistics Division, New York (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Tapscott, D., Tapscott, A.: Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World. Penguin Random House, USA (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Casey, M.J., Vigna, P.: The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything. St. Martin’s Press (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Reynolds, F., Haaga, J. (eds): The American People: Census 2000. Russell Sage Foundation (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  5. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe: Conference of European Statisticians Recommendations for the 2020 Censuses of Population and Housing. UNECE (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Weinstein, S.: Blockchain neutrality. Georgia Law Rev. 55(2), 499–591 (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Nakamoto, S.: Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Bitcoin. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf. Accessed 20 July 2021

  8. Scheller, F., Reichelt, D., Dienst S., et al.: Effects of implementing decentralized business models at a neighborhood energy system level: a model based cross-sectoral analysis. In: 14th International Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM), Dresden, pp. 1-6 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Scheller, F., Johanning, S., Seim, S., et al.: Legal framework of decentralized energy business models in Germany: challenges and opportunities for municipal utilities. J. Energy Ind. 42, 207–223 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Chen, Y., Bellavitis, C.: Blockchain disruption and decentralized finance: the rise of decentralized business models. J. Bus. Ventur. Insights 13, e00151 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Batubara, F.R., Ubacht, J., Janssen, M.: Unraveling transparency and accountability in blockchain. In: Proceedings of the 20th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research. ACM (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Alketbi, A., Nasir, Q., Talib, M.: Blockchain for government services - use cases, security benefits and challenges. In: 15th Learning and Technology Conference (L&T), pp. 112–119. IEEE (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  13. BITNATION: Governance 2.0 (2017). https://bitnation.co/.21. Accessed July 2021

  14. Mattila, J.: The blockchain phenomenon – the disruptive potential of distributed consensus architectures. ETLA Working Papers 38, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Shamseer, L., Moher, D., Clarke, M., et al.: Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015: elaboration and explanation. BMJ 349, g7647 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g7647

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Elsevier’s Scopus Now Accessible Within EBSCO Discovery Service. EBSCO Publishing. http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/Digest/Elseviers-Scopus-Now-Accessible-Within-EBSCO-Discovery-Service-85415.asp. Accessed 12 Nov 2021

  17. Karim, M.: Missing people in census. Daily DAWN (2017). https://www.dawn.com/news/1364371. Accessed 23 July 2018

  18. Israr, F.: 15 million Karachiites missing in census. Daily Nation (2017). https://nation.com.pk/06-Nov-2017/15-million-karachiites-missing-in-census-claims-sattar. Accessed 23 July 2018

  19. CBS News (2012). https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2010-census-missed-15-million-minorities. Accessed 23 July 2018

  20. Elana, B.: Time for Another Head Count (2018). https://slate.com/technology/2018/05/2020-census-technology-could-help-with-address-verification.html. Accessed 25 July 2018

  21. Hogan, H.: The accuracy and coverage evaluation: theory and design. Surv. Methodol. 29, 129–138 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Etebong, P.C.: Demography in Nigeria: problems and prospects. Biostat. Biometr. Open Access J. 5(1), 555654 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  23. O’Hare, W.: Differential Undercounts in the U.S. Census-Who is Missed? Springer Briefs in Population Studies. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10973-8

  24. Crossette, B.: For census-takers worldwide, 2020 could be a rough year (2019). https://www.passblue.com/2019/12/21/for-census-takers-worldwide-2020-could-be-a-rough-year. Accessed 02 Jan 2020

  25. Nagle, R.: We are still here: native americans fight to be counted in US census (2020). https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/15/we-are-still-here-native-americans-fight-to-be-counted-in-us-census. Accessed 04 Jan 2020

  26. Abel, J.: Yet another U.S. government cybersecurity breach; this time it’s the Census Bureau (2015). https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/yet-another-us-government-cybersecurity-breach-this-time-its-the-census-bureau-072415.html. Accessed 20 Feb 2021

  27. Norton, T.: The census is too important to boycott, despite serious privacy concerns (2016). http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-census-is-too-important-to-boycott-despite-privacy-concerns-20160804-gqllvs.html. Accessed 15 Dec 2019

  28. Devins, S.: Why Germans are so private about their data (2017). https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/handelsblatt-explains-why-germans-are-so-private-about-their-data/23572446.html?ticket=ST-1119959-eZWdKzPuhLf4ofbXVloa-ap4. Accessed 02 Jan 2020

  29. Juran, S., Pistiner, A.: The 2010 round of population and housing censuses (2005–2014). Stat. J. IOAS 33, 399–406 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Skinner, C.: Issues and challenges in census taking. Ann. Rev. Stat. Appl. 5, 49–63 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-statistics-041715-033713

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  31. Fienberg, S., Kenneth, P.: Save your census. Nature 466, 1043 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Bair, R., Torrey, B.: The challenges of census taking in developing countries. Govern. Inf. Q. 2(4), 433–452 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1016/0740-624X(85)90070-X. Elsevier (2000)

  33. United Nations: Post Enumeration Surveys Operational Guidelines. United Nations Secretariat, New York (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Makridakis, S., Polemitis, A., Giaglis, G., Louca, S.: Blockchain: the next breakthrough in the rapid progress of AI. Artif. Intell.-Emerg. Trends Appl. 10, 197–219 (2018). https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.75668. IntechOpen

  35. Themistocleous, M., Christodoulou, K., Iosif, E., Louca, S., Tseas, D.: Blockchain in academia: where do we stand and where do we go? In: The Proceedings of the Fifty-Third Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, (HICSS 53), 7–10 January 2020, Maui, Hawaii, USA. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2020)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Digital Innovation Department, University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Sana Rasheed & Soulla Louca

Authors
  1. Sana Rasheed
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Soulla Louca
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sana Rasheed .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Marinos Themistocleous

  2. British University in Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Maria Papadaki

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Rasheed, S., Louca, S. (2022). Exploring the Need for Blockchain-Based National Population Census. In: Themistocleous, M., Papadaki, M. (eds) Information Systems. EMCIS 2021. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 437. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95947-0_9

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95947-0_9

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-95946-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-95947-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics