Residents in Huai’an, Jiangsu province, show their booklets to promote the national population census. VCG
Knock knock. Starting from Nov 1, people will be knocking on doors across the country to collect personal information. But don’t panic. This is for the seventh national population census.
开门啦！从11月1日起，全国各地将会有人入户收集个人信息。但不必惊慌。这是第七次全国人口普查。
The Chinese population census takes place every 10 years. It gathers data including name, age, ID number, gender, education, job, marital status and housing situation.
全国人口普查每十年进行一次。普查内容包括姓名、年龄、身份证号码、性别、受教育程度、职业、婚姻状况、住房情况等。
Tracking down more than 1 billion Chinese citizens is by no means easy. This year, about 7 million staff will be needed to visit homes for registration work, according to Xinhua. New methods will also be used during this census, including online information registration, application of electronic devices and big data.
对十亿多中国公民进行普查并非易事。据新华社报道，今年将有约七百万工作人员入户进行登记工作。本次人口普查也将采用一些新方法，如线上信息登记、电子设备应用以及大数据等。
Compared with previous surveys, new methods will be convenient for people who are not living where they are officially registered, as well as those who do not want to be bothered by census takers’ door-to-door surveys. The new methods also reduce census takers’ workload.
与先前的人口普查相比，这些新方法为不在户口所在地居住以及不想被入户调查打扰的人们提供了便利。新方法也减少了普查工作人员的工作量。
The data is expected to give a full picture of the population, including its size, structure and distribution and recent changes. It provides support for making national development policies.
这些数据有望提供人口的全貌，包括人口数量、结构、分布以及近年变化等。这些数据为制定国家发展政策提供了支持。
The census has a large impact on our lives. For instance, areas with a high number of children may receive more funding for public schools. Researchers can use the results to investigate population trends in different cities. The census will help to find out the number of foreigners living in China. It can also tell how many Chinese people have moved to other countries.
人口普查会对我们的生活产生重大影响。比如，儿童数量较多的地区有望获得更多公立学校资金。研究人员能够使用这些结果对不同城市的人口趋势进行调查。人口普查还有助于了解在华外国人的数量，也能显示迁往他国的中国人数量。
However, citizens’ privacy concerns could be one of the biggest challenges. Some may not be willing to give their personal information to census takers because they are worried about what the data would be used for.
然而，公民的隐私问题或许成了最大的挑战之一。一些人或许不愿意将个人信息透露给人口普查工作人员，因为他们担心这些数据的用途。
There are also worries about privacy leakage among the public.
公众还担心存在隐私泄露的问题。
In response to such concerns, Jiangsu’s pilot work zone allowed residents to upload personal data on their own through WeChat, which avoids information leakage. The data will be delivered directly to the National Bureau of Statistics through a WeChat program, the Global Times reported.
针对这些关切，江苏的试点工作区已允许居民通过微信上传个人数据，避免信息泄露。据《环球时报》报道，这些数据将会通过一个微信小程序直接发送至国家统计局。
