From the traditional census to a permanent one, in the big data era

Censing the population and its habits is an extremely important operation for every state system, and in a world where data are produced from the most disparate sources in a quantity and with a speed up to a few years ago unimaginable, the traditional surveys will necessarily have to give way to new methods of detection and analysis: in a society as complex as the current one, where the elements subjected to monitoring are plural and citizenship itself is more variable and articulated than ever, which also runs to be a data producer, the great wealth of potentially available information is an important source, in presence of new problems, starting from the fact that the censuses will no longer be periodic, but constantly monitored using an integrated system of Big Data. Indeed, after almost 160 years of decennial censuses, October 7th 2018 was the official and historical date of the new Italian permanent census, which started with 2,852 Italian municipalities. The new methodology is based on administrative archives, primarily municipal registers, and is supplemented by sample surveys which will comprise an Integrated System of Registers (SIR), the true focus of the new census. The workload for 2018 consists of 450,000 questionnaires of the areal survey of CAPI type (door to door), and 735,000 questionnaires of the survey from the list, with a first phase CAWI and CATI, and later CAPI (with about 14,000 surveyors on the territory). In the provincial capitals and in large demographic municipalities (self-representative) the Municipal Census Bureau (UCC) will work every year, while in the other municipalities (non-self-representative) the UCC will carry out their activity for one year until 2021 and another year from 2022 to 2031.