For the first time in history, the 2022 national census can be completed virtually from mobile phones and through the web. Since it was launched this Wednesday, some 200,000 households have already completed the registration in that way. However, the controversy broke out because the digital form asks to enter the DNI number and personal email address. This is an unprecedented request for an instrument that usually safeguards statistical secrecy and which, according to computer experts, exposes users to risks to privacy and the theft of personal data.
Criticism began to multiply yesterday afternoon on social networks, after the director of INDEC, Marco Lavagna, presented the collection tool from which the new “photo” of the population will be obtained. The last census operation took place in 2010, bitterly coinciding with the death of former President Néstor Kirchner.
The novelty and controversy arose from the “bimodal” format of the 2022 national census. On the one hand, the traditional and face-to-face survey that will be carried out again at home on May 18 will continue to be in force. For those who want to speed up times, the virtual option has become available, which enables users to enter census information in advance.
From social networks, users and computer specialists drew attention to the privacy risks involved in the digital questionnaire. To begin completing it, the census website requires personal data such as ID number and date of birth. With this step, a receipt is generated with a six-digit alphanumeric code that must be presented to census takers, when they attend homes on May 18. Throughout the procedure, the name of the head of household, gender and age of the person providing the information are also recorded.
The detractors of this methodology raised the suspicion that the sensitive information collected by the digital census allows the personalization of the information loading, which exposes it to potential hacks and computer attacks on privacy. In the face-to-face operation, census takers will not ask for the document number or first and last name from the persons surveyed, although there was an official intention to include it in the format after reproaches from civil and academic organizations.
“The census questionnaire does not ask for DNI”, clarified Indec spokespersons. “The document number, together with the day and month of birth, is a temporary screen used to verify that the person who is going to answer the digital questionnaire is a human/real person, and not a robot, old enough (from 14 years old) to answer on behalf of all household members. Validation is required only for entry into the census questionnaire and the safekeeping of your information”, they expanded from the agency.
In public statements, Marco Lavagna insisted that DNI information is not stored in a database. The official website clarifies this through a legend, in which it states that the document “will not be linked to the information I will record in the Digital Census, nor will it be stored”. “I authorize the use of my ID card only to enable me access to complete the questionnaire on behalf of all members of my household,” the message prescribes.
The site also clarifies that each person's answers are absolutely confidential and are protected by the statistical secrecy provided for in Law 17,622. It informs that the storage of the rest of the data will be collected on the servers of the Argentine Company of Satellite Solutions Sociedad Anónima (ARSAT), under techniques of “anonymization, encryption and data governance” inspired by Law 17.622 and other complementary regulations.
But experts are wary.
“The web application has a sign that says that no data will be stored. Of course, it's a falsehood that I don't think is intentional. The idea of using the DNI is so that no two forms are the same, or the same thing is not answered twice. If it is not stored, why do you request it? Somewhere you have to save it for comparison. The problem with this is that it gives the possibility of a lot of identifiable data,” said Enrique Chaparro, a mathematician (UBA) specialized in computer security and a member of the Via Libre Foundation and the International Association of Cryptologic Research.
According to Chaparro, the data uploaded to the website with the DNI and personal email must be linked to a database. He explains that only with this method can the questionnaire be retrieved in real time and have the ease of completing it in parts. “If that is later unlinked from the code and the email account, I don't know. INDEC has not taken the work of clarifying this,” he said.
From this point of view, the expert raised the identification information with the DNI “is not essential” to check the existence of robots or the possible supply of false information, and that there are other alternative “identifying” mechanisms, without having to compare them with a “particular identity”. And he warned that nothing prevents a human person from loading false data under the current scheme.
“You can always enter the DNI number of another person and another address. To avoid this, the census taker is supposed to ask for the vouchers and verify what was completed via the web,” he added.
In the Ministry of the Interior of the Nation, in charge of the preparation and control of identity documents, they clarified to Infobae that “they do not participate in any census instance” and that they only “provide data updating services when required, as to any other State agency”. “There is no online connection or link to the census web form,” they clarified.
Another critical point of the survey, according to Fundación Vía Libre, is the confirmation of the existence of “trackers” in the sending of alphanumeric codes to personal emails. The tracker aims, in this case, to “establish a link between the recipient of the mail and the housing code”. The curiosity is that these “followers”, according to the analysis of their URLs, are associated with the domain of the company mdirector.com, a private company of foreign origin that is dedicated to online marketing.
“I suppose they have contracted the management of these emails to facilitate the user, but the safest solution is to do it with the State's own resources. A malicious third party can hack the private provider, gaining access to all forms and those addresses in transit,” Chaparro said.
Usually, “trackers” have a commercial purpose. Chaparro said that they are some of the procedures that “collect the miguitas that we leave -on the web- to offer things we need.” “I think about the commercial value that information like this can have for a third party and I think it offers a social cut, based on email addresses, on a technically educated public enough to complete a census,” speculated the Vía Libre mathematician.
The potential risks of the digital questionnaire have just entered the political leadership. The vice president of the Cordovan PRO and national deputy, Soher El Sukaria, submitted a request for reports to Congress requesting the Executive Branch on the security guarantees and privacy of the statistical secrecy of the 2022 Census.
Sukaria recalled the latest computer attacks that “demonstrated weakness in the State's security systems, in relation to the data thefts that occurred at the National Directorate of Migration in 2020, at Renaper in 2021 and the Senate of the Nation in January of this year. And he noted that “it is not clear on the website of the Digital Census how the system works”.
“Information is requested indicating whether there is no way to correlate the different databases in order to obtain sensitive information about the person,” the deputy added, and insinuated: “What guarantee do we have that the information contained therein is not used for electoral purposes?”
Infobae asked sources close to the Agency for Access to Public Information (AAIP), the decentralized authority for the application of the Law on the Protection of Personal Data, whether they would intervene in the process to verify whether there is any security and transparency risk in uploading data into the web form. There were no answers to the queries.
At Indec, meanwhile, they defended the online questionnaire and recalled that it is “complementary” and optional. Those who have doubts or suspicions about the system can wait for the census taker the old-fashioned way, at the door of his house on May 18.
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