I believe there should be data collected on the number of mobile phones that people own per person or even per household. This data could be used to better understand preferred forms of communication and how best to tailor programs and policy towards the population. This could be expanded to ask whether people have a personal email address, and possibly even social media accounts. Being able to review this data both numerically, but importantly spatially, will also help local authorities to understand how to tailor their communications to their local community. It will also help to further identify areas of socio-economic disadvantage.
Assessment Criteria 2
2.
There is a need for data from a Census of the whole population.
For whole population
Information about forms of communication would be useful for both geographical areas, as well as in combination with other datasets such as income, employment, country of birth etc.
Assessment Criteria 3
3.
The topic can be accurately collected in a form which the household completes themselves.
Easy to answer
Yes it could be easily communicated e.g. how many mobile phones are owned within your household?
Assessment Criteria 4
4.
The topic would be acceptable to Census respondents.
Acceptable
Generally speaking most people would be comfortable answering whether they have an email address and how many mobile phones they own within the household. One potential concern is that a high number of mobile phones compared to number of persons may raise the suspicion of authorities, however they could not be identified from the data.
Assessment Criteria 5
5.
The topic can be collected efficiently.
Collected efficiently
The questions could be framed in a way that a purely numerical response would be required, and would only require one additional question per topic / form of communication. It wouldn't matter what type of mobile phone or email address they use, just whether they have one and how many they have.
Assessment Criteria 6
6.
There is likely to be a continuing need for data on this topic in the following Census.
Continuing need
Yes this data will certainly remain relevant for the foreseeable future, as emails have been in existing for several decades and are likely to continue. It would be useful to see how this has grown over time, and how our primary methods of communication are changing.
Assessment Criteria 7
7.
There are no other alternative data sources or solutions that could meet the topic need.
No alternatives
This data would be collected across a number of private organisations, however I am not aware of a single, central point to access number of mobile phones or email addresses.
Any further comments?
If you would like to tell us anything else about your submission, please comment below.
Further comments
This form of consultation is quite broad and difficult to adequately respond without some form of prompt. It would be useful at time of the 2021 Census (or just after) for people to have an opportunity to comment whilst it's fresh in their minds, or just after the data has been released when they have been actively using it.