Starting in mid-March, U.S. households will receive a mailing from the U.S. Census Bureau inviting people to complete the census, a once-every-10-years count of every person living in the United States.
The questionnaire will ask you for personal information, including your race, gender, date of birth and whether you own or rent your residence.
If you answer online, by phone or by mail, you won't be visited by census workers, who, beginning in May, will be knocking on doors and asking these questions.
Meantime, be alert to the potential for fraud and scams. Crooks and con artists may masquerade as census workers when they're actually after your cash or personal data.
Here are nine things you — and anybody living with you — won't be asked for during the big census count.
1. Your money. There is no payment or fee attached to completing the census. Likewise, the Census Bureau won't ask for a contribution. Watch out for suspicious mailings that may resemble a census form but are sheep's clothing to solicit a donation or purported “processing fee."
2. Your Social Security number. Safeguard these nine digits at all times.
3. Your credit card and debit card numbers. These belong to you — not Uncle Sam. Nor will the census ask you for a bank-routing number or account number associated with any of your financial holdings.
4. Your computer passwords. Never divulge these to a stranger.
5. Your political affiliation or beliefs. The census doesn't go there.
6. Your religious affiliation or beliefs. Not the government's business.
7. Your driver's license number. Not up for grabs.
8. Your citizenship status. They don't ask, so don't tell.
9. Your passport number. Keep this identifier, and the fascinating trips you've taken, private.
