The Dark Side of Numbers: The Role of Population Data Systems in Human Rights Abuses

Social Research, Summer, 2001 by William Seltzer, Margo Anderson

We focus on the human rights abuses of forced migration, internment, genocide, and crimes against humanity. We first summarize available evidence on the misuse, or attempted misuse, of population data systems to bring harm to vulnerable populations. Second, we review the types of safeguards that may help to deter future misuses. Third, we present a summary of needed further research, focused on an enumeration of other hitherto unstudied cases where misuses may have occurred and on safeguards. We conclude with a reminder that population data systems have also been important sources of evidence in the prosecution of human rights abuses.

Documented Instances of Misuse or Attempted Misuse

A cursory review of the history of episodes of genocide and forced migration of the past two centuries yields some obvious instances to start thinking about population data systems and human rights abuses. These include the Nazi Holocaust during World War II; the internment of Japanese Americans during the same period; the forced removal of American Indians from their territorial lands in the United States in the nineteenth century; the forced migration of minority populations in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s; and the Rwanda genocide of 1994. In each case, a military or police apparatus sought to manage, implement, and justify the genocide or removal of entire populations from their prior civil life. The question at hand is the role of population data systems in these processes.

We distinguish four types of use of population data and expertise (Seltzer and Anderson, 2000): (a) macrodata (the use of compiled statistical results in terms of large aggregates and geographic units); (b) mesodata (the use of compiled statistical results for very small geographic units; (c) unprotected microdata (the use of information, such as identification number or name and address, along with related information that identifies an individual as a member of a vulnerable group); and (d) the use of other material, staff, services, and expertise provided by the population data system, particularly the national statistical service.

Most commentators would readily admit that statistical authorities should not grant access to confidential microdata to military or political authorities, and that they should certainly try to protect this data from military invaders. But how should and did statistical authorities respond to requests for macrodata, mesodata, and professional expertise for policies aimed at human rights abuses? This is a much more difficult question, and since macrodata is likely to be published routinely and is thus publicly available from the statistical system, professionals have generally disclaimed responsibility for harms connected to the use of macrodata. Typically macrodata refer to statistical tabulations, or related graphics, for countries, provinces or states, counties or gouvernments, and moderate to large urban agglomerations. Such tabulations, while important for policymaking, propaganda, and general administrative purposes, usually have limited value in planning or carrying out the operational aspects of a major human rights abuse.