What do a cholera outbreak, a Suffragette protest and the discovery of 400,000 Jedi living in the UK have in common? Each represents a moment in history where the course of events shifted because governments decided to gather data on people.
Our relationship with the state is most tangible and, perhaps, deepest of all through the data it collects about us. It’s a personal, even intimate connection, and yet, for all its significance, it remains remarkably fragile.
Over the last few years, I’ve explored the history of the UK and its people through the data we’ve gathered about ourselves and the result is a new book ‘Sum of Us: A History of the UK in Data’. What has surprised me, as I’ve traced the nation’s story through census records, social surveys and even wartime population registers, is how far removed the process is from the cold, robotic, technocratic system we often imagine.
Two centuries ago, the state’s knowledge of its people was limited to a handful of lists: men eligible for conscription and those with taxable assets. Gradually, other groups were brought out of the statistical shadows and each time this happened it signified a shift toward recognition and, often, change.
When Victorian statisticians ventured into poor and working-class areas to first collect data, it was with the devotion to detail of realist painters. Their painstaking reports from Victorian Soho revealed that a cholera outbreak could be traced back to a single contaminated pump, and the result was vast improvements to public health. Data showing that major industries like cotton manufacture were mainly staffed by women helped towards campaigns for greater equality.
In recent years, governments and society at large have started to collect more data on personal characteristics and identities. The most recent census in England, Wales and Scotland included new questions on sexual orientation and gender identity, following on from the introduction of ethnicity and religion questions in other recent census rounds. These developments reflect an expectation that citizens will volunteer increasingly private information. Yet history reminds us that data collection is a delicate negotiation that can easily falter without trust.
The UK has a rich history of protest against data collection, from an early census boycott in 1811 to one in 2005 where people stripped naked in Parliament square in protest against a population database and identity cards. The 1911 census was boycotted by Suffragettes, whose line was that if women didn’t count enough to have the right to vote, they would deny the state the right to count them. In the 2001 census, a more benign but very effective act of mass trouble-making resulted in so many people declaring themselves to be ‘Jedi’ on the census form that it came out as the fourth largest religion.
While penalties for not providing data in the UK remain relatively mild – reflecting our high regard for individual liberty – the landscape has changed dramatically over the past few decades. The social obedience that guaranteed good response rates to censuses and surveys has eroded significantly.
Today, we live in a world driven by mass information. Data is the lubricant in virtually all our interactions with the state and the private sector, from having to share contact details and diversity information to accepting cookies on websites. Though these are often framed as choices they are, in practice, forms of taxation in which data is exchanged for access to the conveniences and innovations of the modern world. Through our use of smartphones and the internet, we cannot help but shed data everywhere we go as if we were radioactive. But what our boundaries are – or should be – in this new world are still unclear.
A growing reluctance to share personal data has led to a significant drop in response rates to social surveys in the UK and other developed nations. The UK’s Labour Force Survey and its broader version the Annual Population Survey have become unusable for fine-grained data analysis because so many people refuse to fill them out, which is a problem for public policy.
Having good data on the population is a testament to the health of a democracy. But in recent times, as the state wants from an ever closer and more personal flow of information from us, public trust has waned. Looking at our history and remembering the good data has done for us can remind us of its worth. The archives of census records and the servers holding our digital data are more than just storage – population data is one of the most amazing achievements we have. It shouldn’t be taken for granted.
Georgina Sturge’s new book ‘Sum of Us: A History of the UK in Data’ is out now.
Click here to subscribe to our daily briefing – the best pieces from CapX and across the web.
CapX depends on the generosity of its readers. If you value what we do, please consider making a donation.
