600 million records

Last night, The Population Project crossed the 600-million-human barrier, following the import of our first lists from Peru. We're now following 28 countries, 11 of which show a coverage rate over 50%.

Huge disparities can be seen between territories:

• Island nations from the Caribbeans that publish their voter lists but not much else;
• Large countries such as the USA, the UK, and France that are fairly transparent and publish some (but not all) vital and electoral records;
• Latin American countries that publish lists of social aid recipients, more often at the regional level;
• European countries - Germany, the Netherlands, Spain - that publish very little data.

We're also observing antagonistic worldwide trends:

• A global call for transparency. Citizens want to know how their taxes are employed, employers ask for access to students' records, young athletes want to see how they compare with their peers, fueling a trend towards ever more data, accessible 24/7 by everyone.
• A request for increased privacy, as illustrated by the European Union's GDPR laws. The user of any website can ask to see and potentially wipe out whatever data has been collected on them.

Although it's too early to say which side will prevail, one can venture the guess that the US will remain in the transparency team, while Europe will stick to its regulatory guns.

At this stage, we've said nothing of Asia. This is because we haven't started working on non-Roman alphabets. We're still a little while away from that. Stay tuned for updates. As always, do not hesitate to reach out if you want to help.