Developing Electronic Sources of Information on the Population in the Wartime

Анотація

The development of information technologies has significantly enhanced the capacities of complex systems for collection, storage, processing, and use of information. In the recent decades, large volumes of structured data accumulated by official power bodies have been stored in databases and registers, the data on the country population obviously being the largest information arrays. Hence, the electronic information resources containing such data can be considered as a priority source for obtaining population data. However, the applicability of these resources is degraded by several problems, one of them being absence of a single identifier of a physical person, which could have allowed one to combine easily data from various registers. Electronic information resources in Ukraine have shown a steadily upward dynamics, especially remarkable in several recent years, but its vector has changed under the impact of the war: the regulatory framework has been subject to amendments pertaining to the existing registers, databases and systems, and a series of new ones launched, most of which have no foreign analogues. It raises the importance of an analysis of the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war on creating the system of electronic registers containing population data, and the capability of this system to provide information for demographic research. The article’s objective is to trace the evolution of public electronic registers containing data on the population; to sum up innovations in this field caused by the war context; to explore the applicability of this information base for demographic analysis and assessment of demographic losses. The amendments are examined, made after the large-scale Russian invasion in the Unified State Demographic Register, Registers of Territorial Communities, the State Register of Individuals – Taxpayers, Register of Insured Persons of the State Register of Compulsory State Social Insurance, Unified Information Database of Internally Displaced Persons, Central Database of the Electronic Health Care System (eHealth), Register of Providers and Beneficiaries of Social Services, Data Bank on Orphans and Children Deprived of Parental Care of the Unified Information and Analytical System “Dity”, Integrated Interagency Information and Communication System for Monitoring Persons, Vehicles, and Cargo Crossing the State Border (“Arkan”), Unified State Register of Conscripts, Persons Liable for Military Service, and Reservists “Oberih”, and some others. Another category of examined registers are ones which creation is caused by the large-scale war: Unified State Register of Military Personnel, Information System for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Unified Register of Persons in Respect of Whom the Fact of Deprivation of Personal Liberty as a Result of Armed Aggression Against Ukraine Has Been Established, Register of Information on Children Deported or Forcibly Displaced in Connection with the Armed Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. The necessity for real data on the number of the population for effective reconstruction of Ukraine, and for estimating the losses caused by the Russian aggression is emphasized. Key words: public electronic registers, information about population, Russian-Ukrainian war, war losses, demographic research. Introduction. Obtaining information on the number and status of the population in time of military conflicts or immediately after them is a challenge for demographers. Wars bring not only deaths, injuries or mutilations on the battlefield, but also massive movements of people fleeing from warfare or death behind the front line from air raids, illnesses, inadequate or untimely medical aid. Hence, collection and, most importantly, relatively secure storage of large volumes of data on the residents of a country in war for further demographic analysis, war losses in particular, are of vital importance. The problems of data storage and processing are dealt with nowadays by using information systems, electronic registers and databases. The digitalization sector has seen especially rapid development in Ukraine in the latest decade, catching up with most advanced European countries or even surpassing them. Once the large-scale Russian invasion was launched, data on the civilian population and the military in Ukraine, which had been gradually accumulating in the registers, required a more detailed analysis, on the one hand, and the implementation of new information systems and registers, on the other. Creating a single system for further demographic analysis (especially for exploring the demographic effects of military conflicts) relying on electronic registers are admittedly a vital task. The article’s objective is to trace the evolution of public electronic registers containing data on the population; to sum up innovations in this field caused by the war context; to explore the applicability of this information base for demographic analysis and assessment of demographic losses. Materials and methods. Principal theses and conclusions of this article are substantiated using a complex of analytical methods, including synthesis and analysis of available information sources concerned with the wartime development of public electronic registers (PERs) containing population data; logical framework analysis of problems in this field and their potential solutions; method of comparisons and analogies for scientific generalization and elaborating recommendations. Results and discussion. A review of research publications devoted to creation and operation of electronic registers in Ukraine shows that their authors are mainly lawyers, their research tending to focus on the legal support to the operation of PERs. Regrettably, our search in the Ukrainian segment of publications on applications of electronic registers containing population data could not find many sources (not counting articles and monographs written by this article’s authors with their colleagues). Of the foreign publications which are much more in number, reference should be made to the articles of M. Poulain, А. Herm [1], A. Hooda Nandal, M. Singla [2], B. Santos, E. Mussino, S. Drefahl [3], devoted to analysis of the operation of the registers’ systems in EU countries, the transition to population censuses based on registers, using data from electronic registers of population in assessing extra coverage (overstatement of the population number), and some others. Above all, the topic of our research is vitally important for the Ukrainian state, because electronic registers have to be created and operated amidst an atrocious war, when the recording of population becomes much more complicated. The bulk of data on the Ukrainian population are filed in the Unified State Demographic Register (USDR) and the Registers of Territorial Communities (RTCs). Analysis of the data in these registers gives grasp of the number, age-and-sex composition, and regional distribution of the population, in spite of the inadequacy and incompleteness of USDR from the demographic point, which was discussed by us earlier (see, e.g., [4]). However, the Russian-Ukrainian war made its corrections: structures of some registers were amended and new RTCs launched due to migration of the population from unsafe regions to the areas under the Ukrainian control once the war began, as well as internal and external migration. Important data on location, age-and-sex composition of the population, employment or education can be extracted from the registers of the State Tax Service (namely, from the State Register of Individuals – Taxpayers), and the Pension Fund of Ukraine (the Register of Insured Persons), whereas data on births and deaths can be obtained from the State Register of Civil Status Acts of Citizens (SRCSAC) held by the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice. These registers, operated over many years, could accumulate large data arrays. Yet, the data in these registers are unlikely to be updated in the full scope due to warfare and migration of the population. Some of the war-related updates in the existing registers have, however, been made in RTCs. The Law of Ukraine “On Providing Public (Online Public) Services on Declaring and Registering the Place of Residence in Ukraine” [5] (editions after 2023–2024) specifies that RTCs shall record details on the registered place of residence of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, and on the territories of warfare (current or past). This ruling applies to making children’s documents identifying the person and confirming the Ukrainian citizenship. Hence, it has been possible to store not only historical details on previous places of residence, but also the data on the registered address of IDPs on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine or warfare zones [5, section VI, paragraphs 10-101]. Also, the abovementioned law links RTCs with “Oberih” register: now details from RTCs about men in conscription age can be transmitted to concerned territorial centers of staffing and social support [5, article 27, item 5]. The Unified Information Database on Internally Displaced Persons had been launched as early as before the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014, after the enforcement of the Law of Ukraine “On Securing the Rights and Freedoms of Internally Displaced Persons” [6, article 41]. Amendments to the Procedure for Creation, Maintenance and Access to Data of Unified Information Database on Internally Displaced Persons [7] were being made in all the years that followed, to improve the recording of IDPs and their living conditions in new communities. Thus, the amendments in article 7 of the above law, made in 2022, provide additional benefits for the migrants in registering the unemployment status, whereas amendments to article 92 provide these benefits for them in protecting from adverse effects of non-fulfillment of financial obligation

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