Here, in Latvia, the government is actively preparing for the upcoming population census. Insultingly, the main slogan for this campaign is that to participate is the way to make the government respect you. As if anyone needs their respect…
The usual excuse for not participating - by not allowing the agents onto your property - is undermined by a “convenience” - if you fill all the information about you and all who lives with you online, the agents will not come. How do they know who lives with you is beyond me.
The official web site of the census does not disclose, what is the punishment for not participating, it only states that everyone must participate. Oh, and it mentions that the EU requires this, among other reasons.
That got me curious - what is the situation in other (EU or not) countries? Can one easily shrug the annoyance of the census agents off?
Last time it was done here (Italy) I just got sent a big envelope with an extremely thick pile of modules inside. It came together with a letter describing the sanctions for not partecipating or for giving “false data”. My bank never threatened me for not filling modules and they are supposed to be the bad guys! I don’t think anybody has ever been persecuted for census-related offences: lot of people do mistakes (I think I’ve done quite a few myself) and since it came through ordinary mail there was no way to know somebody has thrown it into the garbage or just had its modules gone lost at the post office.
Since every single step of our lives get traced through anagraphic and fiscal records there’s absolutely no way a government needs a Bible-style census in 2011 to know how many persons live under its heel. This is mostly done as a “make work” project and to provide numbers for statistical purposes. Eurocrats love statistics!