Instituto Nacional de Estatística Censos 2021 (Portugal)

Challenge

For the 2021 edition of the Census, the Portuguese National Statistics Institute (INE) set a clear ambition: modernise a traditionally paper‑based, nationwide operation and ensure a more agile, secure and efficient approach to collecting demographic data.

After a successful pilot in 2018, DXspark joined INE in a multi‑year collaboration to design and implement the digital ecosystem that would support the country’s largest statistical operation.

Carrying out a Census is one of the most complex public operations a country organises. INE needed to transform processes that had been manual for decades into a reliable digital model without compromising coverage, security or trust.

Key challenges included ensuring full operational control across a nationwide field operation, integrating multiple workflows into a coherent ecosystem, supporting thousands of field agents including areas with limited connectivity and delivering a secure, transparent and data‑accurate process at a national scale.

Approach

DXspark collaborated closely with INE, specifically the Census Coordination team and IT & Infrastructure teams through a continuous partnership model combining workshops, field validation and iterative delivery cycles.

Over 6,000 hours went into developing a fully integrated ecosystem supporting the entire lifecycle like agent recruitment, mobile app for mapping and PIN distribution, global censos online forms for all country, monitoring tools and a specialised data‑quality assessment application.

Results

The 2021 Census marked the first fully digital edition in Portugal. INE publicly reported: 99.3% coverage rate and 83.3% preliminary global response rate.

The ecosystem contributed to greater efficiency, reduced paper usage, lower operational costs, increased transparency and more reliable national data.

This project stands as one of the most ambitious digital transformations in the Portuguese public sector.

For DXspark, it represents a long‑term partnership built on delivery and trust, a milestone in secure large‑scale digital public services, and a demonstration of how digitalisation can strengthen citizen confidence.