Ukraine turns to Apple’s iPhone to run national census

Why don’t you want to answer question 6?

The Ukraine will be the second nation after the U.S. to rely on Apple technology to conduct a census into its national population, according to that nation’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Number-crunching in the Ukraine

Writing on Twitter, Ukraine’s President said he was: “Proud that Ukraine will be the second country in the world to conduct a census in collaboration with Apple.”

He says Apple and the Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the project on November 30.

The decision follows a meeting between Zelensky and Apple CEO, Tim Cook, in September.

The President then wrote: “Glad to meet Tim Cook, who runs a company that inspires all digitalists around the world by example.” He shared that Apple and the Ukraine were interested in “implementing new ambitious joint projects.”

Радий зустрітися з @tim_cook, який керує компанією, що надихає своїм прикладом усіх прихильників цифровізації у світі. 🇺🇦 також уже є світовим IT-хабом. Ми зацікавлені у розширенні присутності @Apple в Україні та реалізації нових амбітних спільних проектів. pic.twitter.com/d11rU47IRb

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 2, 2021

A local report says Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation has sought to work with Apple to use digital tools for the population census in 2023.

Back in the U.S.A

Over half a million iPhone 8’s were used to run the U.S. population census in 2020. Census takers went door-to-door using their Apple devices to file responses from the 40% of the population who did not file manually online or via the mail. The iPhones were leased from CDW-G for the survey and later reused in other enterprise initiatives.

[Also read: Apple notifies NSO spyware targets across multiple nations]

“We are proud that the US Census Bureau will use the iPhone for the collection and management of 2020 census data,” said an Apple spokesperson at the time. “The census is an important constitutional cornerstone that aims to ensure every one of us has equal representation, education and access in America.”

Ukraine’s move to adopt Apple’s kit for the census is the latest in a long line of stories that show the extent to which Cupertino continues to reach segments that were not traditionally open to it before.

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