"Do not count all": why in Ukraine to conduct an electronic census during the war
According to the Minister of Digital Transformation Mikhail Fedorov, the country is ready for a "zero" step in this direction - to verify the necessary information and registration of the census. In addition, experts have already introduced an IT system that allows you to collect information with alternative paths and in real time to receive data from digital media.
"Today we have a clear understanding of how to make a modern census of the population so that fewer people go to apartments, and maximum everything was collected online, or a person could add all the information through" action "in a few clicks. Therefore, we are ready for a population census ", - said Fedorov. The census of the population in electronic format, although it seems, at first glance, a breakthrough step, causes some skepticism in demographics.
According to the director of the Institute of Demography and Social Research of the NAS of Ukraine Ella Libanova, quality accounting can only be held face-to-face. "What is an electronic census? If it is an online census, they do not do so. Even where there is a demographic register system, there are still live surveys from time to time. This is important because the census includes about 30 questions. And there is Questions that cannot be obtained from other sources.
For example, what language you speak. The information from the polls is not enough. We need differentiation by age, article, ethnicity. This is a world practice, and I don't think we are smarter than everyone, " - thinks in a conversation with Libanov's focus. The expert adds that specialists have questions to the technical part. For example, how to involve the population in an online census? Not everyone is ready to spend at least half an hour, answering questions in "action".
In addition, not all Ukrainians use the application, and not everyone has a smartphone. Especially with regard to the country's more age -old population. Libanova adds that it is impossible to carry out a census during the war, because it will be possible to estimate the number of people, their age, place of residence and a large amount of other information only in the fully controlled territories of Ukraine. "We also need to exclude frontal territories.
went abroad through the war? Yes, these people have issued temporary protection, but I am not sure that they all live where they are registered. In addition, I do not think that we will be given access to this information. And most importantly - why do it? Technology can evaluate the population and age composition. But there is also an open question about men of conscript age. The rest can only be done after the end of the war, "Libanova emphasized.
Cybersecurity experts say focus that theoretically conduct an electronic census of the population is easy when it comes to the number of people currently living in Ukraine. The authorities tested a similar experiment in 2019. It was an electronic assessment of the population under the leadership of the then Cabinet Minister Dmitry Dubillet. The exiter called the traditional offline security too expensive.
Three methods were used during the evaluation: in particular, mobile operators, social quotations, information from the state registers. Sociologists were not delighted with the experiment. According to experts, the electronic population census system should be built on modern technologies, comparable in complexity with the so -called "artificial intelligence".
Such a system should draw the correct conclusion by receiving data from the base of registration of residence, birth-birth base, registration-off marriage, tax data, border guards, military enlistment office, housing office, housing office, fiscal checks, declarations, courts, transport companies and many others. But at this stage there are many questions. First, not all digitized data. Secondly, what to do with Ukrainians who live abroad during the war.
They get married, children are born, and this information is not always recorded in consular institutions. "Such systems are the most difficult to protect. The" electronic census "system will have access to the maximum number of databases, so it will be an extremely attractive target for criminals of all masks, ranging from fraudsters and ending with hostile special services.
And as domestic officials are able to protect databases We know that many underground platforms and TG channels sell many different databases. For example, in January 2022 there was a large-scale "drain" of 30 GB of data from "action", which in the Ministry of digital was still not even recognized, "-said in a conversation with focus Cyber Security expert Konstantin Korsun.
The expert notes that most state registers work on the basis of outdated technologies, and information from them regularly "drain" and sell in the black market. In addition, there is no information about the degree of perfection of the electronic census system itself: on what principles, algorithms, approaches, technologies it is built. And whether, for example, there is a system of system operator to make changes to the results of "electronic census".
In order to make it impossible, it must be completely transparent for everyone. But with this in modern Ukraine there are big problems. We will remind, the State Statistics Service of Ukraine carried out records of the population in 2001. According to the UN rules, the census is conducted every 10 years, but since 2011 the process was postponed several times - first due to lack of budget funds, then because of the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.