Fact-check: Beware of scams. PBS has not launched an online portal for the population census
While the PBS has designed a web-based application to provide Pakistani citizens the facility of self-enumeration, the application is yet to be made public
Updated Saturday Feb 04 2023
Multiple social media users allege that the government has rolled out an online portal, where Pakistani citizens can register to be counted in the country’s first digital population headcount.
The claim is misleading.
Claim
On January 15, a Facebook account posted a short video, which purportedly guided people on how to register for Pakistan’s latest population census.
“Here is a simple procedure for people to self-register their households in the census,” the caption of the post read, “After downloading the self-enumeration application on your mobile phones, between January 15 and to January 31, you can enter the data of your family from any part of the country.”
The video has received over 600 views to date.
On the same day, a verified Facebook page of the Deputy Commissioner Mardan also posted screenshots from the video with a similar text.
This post had been shared 57 times, at the time of writing.
Fact
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the government agency tasked to conduct the population and housing census, has not released any video about an online portal.
While the PBS has designed a web-based application to provide Pakistani citizens the facility of self-enumeration, the application is yet to be made public. Self-enumeration is when respondents are asked to complete an online questionnaire to be counted in a country’s population census.
Pakistan will be conducting its first digital census this year, marking an end to the traditional practice of on-field enumerators, who moved from house to house to canvas information for the census.
“No such portal has been launched,” Muhammad Sarwar Gondal, the focal person of the PBS, told Geo Fact Check over the phone, “All these videos and links are misleading.”
Gondal further added that when PBS does open to the public the online application, it will be announced from its official social media handles.
On January 31, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics also tweeted that the self-enumeration portal, which will allow people to register themselves through the Internet for Pakistan’s upcoming seventh population and housing census “has not been launched as yet”.
“Be wary of fake web portals and do not provide them with any information,” it added.
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