New Delhi: India is preparing to conduct its first fully digital population census, marking a major shift from the traditional paper based system to a technology driven process. The exercise will be carried out in two phases and is expected to begin in 2026, with early preparations already underway in states such as Kerala.
In the first phase, officials will collect details about houses, assets and basic facilities available to households. The second phase will focus on gathering personal information such as age, education, occupation and migration details of individuals.
For the first time, people will also have the option to fill in their details online through a self enumeration system. This is expected to make the process faster and reduce the workload of field staff.
Kerala has played an important role in testing the digital system, with trial runs already conducted to ensure the new method works smoothly before it is rolled out across the country.
Authorities have made it clear that all personal information collected during the census will remain strictly confidential. The data will not be shared under the Right to Information Act and cannot be used as evidence in courts. These protections are provided under the Census Act of 1948 to ensure the privacy of citizens.
Only overall statistics and combined data will be made public, while individual details will remain protected.
The digital census is expected to improve accuracy, speed up data collection and allow quicker release of results. At the same time, the strong privacy rules have raised some concerns among observers about transparency and access to information.
Despite these concerns, the upcoming census is seen as a major step in modernising one of the largest data collection exercises in the world.