Individual data to remain confidential; not to be used for any scheme benefit: Census commissioner

New Delhi: Registrar General of India and Census Commissioner Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan on Monday advised citizens to give accurate information to Census enumerators, asserting that the individual data will remain confidential and cannot be used as evidence or to get benefit under any scheme.

Addressing a press conference, as the first phase of the country’s 16th Census is all set to begin in April in some states, including Delhi, the commissioner said under Section 15 of the Census Act, all individual data remains confidential.

The Census will be conducted in Delhi from April 16 to May 15.

"All the individual data collected during the exercise remains confidential. It cannot be shared under the Right to Information Act, used as evidence in a court and cannot be shared with any organisation, be it government or private," he said.

Only statistical aggregate data will be used for tabulation purposes, he added.

Asked about caste being included in the Census and the apprehension that people may not give correct information, the Registrar General said the data related to caste will be collected during the second phase, and the questions will be decided after exhaustive discussions.

Since the individual data shared by any person with a Census enumerator will be strictly confidential and cannot be used to derive benefit from any government scheme, he said the apprehension that it will be misused is misplaced.

For the first time, self-enumeration has been introduced where the public can digitally submit information during the 15-day window preceding the first phase of Census Houselisting and Housing Census, notified by each state and Union Territory, he said.

"Earlier, data was collected on physical paper, which took a lot of time in digitisation. We will start getting digital data right from the start, hence we will be able to issue such data very early. Many data sets will be published in 2027 itself," he added.

Narayan further said that this provision will be only available to people residing in the country and not outside the geographical boundaries.

No documents need to be provided during the Census, he said.

The commissioner also said data will be collected through the Mobile App, and a web-based portal will monitor and manage various activities of Census and House Listing, while block creation will be done through a web mapping application.

Highlighting digital security to ensure the safety of data, he said data centres have been declared as Critical Information Infrastructure to ensure data security during the Census.

He said that no decision regarding the updation of the National Population Register has been taken so far, and added that it does not correlate with the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise undertaken by the Election Commission of India.