US Census is back on paper

Back on April 3rd, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez cancelled the Field Data Collection Automation (FDCA) program that would have conducted the 2010 Census on wireless handheld devices. The main issue seems to be larger than expected budgets, both for the FDCA project and for the overall census. In March, Engadget reported various problems that were encountered during the 2007 test of the PDA’s. Evidently the handheld systems was difficult to use and had problems transmitting the necessary data during the test.

According to this Computer World interview, the survey was going to be a “short-form questionnaire, only seven questions.” I’m guessing the questionnaire is the “Non-Reponse Follow-Up (NRFU) used to used to collect data from nonrepondents to the mailed questionnaires” which is now being moved to paper according to the U.S. Census Press Release. According to the press release the handhelds will still be used for “Address canvassing (AdCan) the compiling of household addresses in preparation for the Census mailout.”

The hardware is a customized version of High Tech Computer Corp’s handhelds running Windows Mobile 5.0. The device does look beautiful and evidently even includes fingerprint authentication.