The income and commuting habits of every household in the country are to be recorded in unprecedented detail by Whitehall as part of the next census.
The Office for National Statistics will use new legal powers to collect data from tax and social security records to compile details of people’s salaries, benefits and investments.
It will be the first time since William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book that everyone’s income will be recorded. The income-gathering exercise aims to publish information on wage levels in different areas, when the census reports in 2023.
At the same time, the ONS is to use material supplied by Vodafone so officials can monitor people’s daily commute. The move, which marks the unprecedented use of information gathered by private companies, is designed to provide more accurate information on commuting than in previous censuses.
In addition, people will be asked to disclose not only their ethnicity and religious allegiance but also their sexual preferences and, almost certainly, whether they are transgender. Last night some campaigners expressed unease about the plans. Dr David Green, director of the Civitas civic values think-tank, said: ‘The inclusion of income information makes me suspicious.
‘You can end up on a slippery slope. The more information the state has about us the closer we get to the Government exerting excessive control. I am not a libertarian but this census may be going too far. We all pay our taxes already, and I can’t see a good reason for wanting to include people’s incomes in the census.
‘The census is already becoming increasingly used for political purposes. The counting of minorities of various kinds allows people to present themselves as victim groups and demand preferential treatment.’
The census is carried out every 10 years, and helps government plan services and understand the make-up of the country
The next national census is due to take place in 2021. Every one of the 24million households in the country will receive a form, but people will be encouraged to submit their answers online. Only those who have difficulty with the online version will be supplied with a paper form.
ONS chiefs are to report to ministers in 2023. While politicians, government departments and councils have long wanted financial information about individuals, families, streets and districts, the ONS has regarded a question about income on census forms as taboo. Trials have found that the public regards it as too intrusive. But the ONS is to use powers granted in legislation slipped through Parliament last year to collect information on incomes from tax records at HM Revenue and Customs and from benefits and pensions data at the Department for Work and Pensions.
Under the Digital Economy Act, the ONS can demand details of every individual’s income and tax and work out the prosperity levels of streets and districts. It must keep all information secure and private but can use it to publish accurate accounts of incomes in different areas.
Questions about sexual orientation are due to be included in the census for the first time. Pictured is the Pride London parade last year
It will be the first time the once-a-decade census, first carried out in 1801, will record incomes.
William the Conqueror’s survey of England, which began in 1086, was so thorough that ‘there was no single hide nor a yard of land, nor indeed one ox nor one cow nor one pig which was left out’. It became known as the Domesday Book because people believed it heralded the last judgement.
As part of the revolutionary use of information gathered by private companies, the ONS has bought data from the property website Zoopla to find residential addresses. The ONS has long had difficulties locating every home in the country.
Further ‘supplementary’ material will be supplied by Vodafone. The ONS believes mobile phone records will give an accurate picture of how and how far people travel to work.
They show which mobile cell towers phones are connected to at different times of the day.
The first national census was taken in 1801, propelled by official fears of the risks of a population explosion, and the count has been repeated every decade since, except in 1941
Last month, the Daily Mail reported that the ONS had disclosed that the questionnaire is likely to include a question on gender identity, phrased so that it can run alongside another query about people’s sex at birth.
Jim Killock, of the Open Rights Group, which campaigns against state surveillance, warned: ‘The census already has a large number of loopholes about the re-use of data, which can be used for research or in crime detection.
‘All the census loopholes will now apply to the other data and all the private sector data collected by the census could be used by the security services. We are going to need to know that strong safeguards will be put in place.’
The census exercise is budgeted to cost taxpayers £840million. Answering some questions will be voluntary, but a refusal to respond to the census at all is a criminal offence that can bring a fine of £1,000.