The last census, which went out in 2011, missed out three-and-a-half million people but cost nearly half a billion pounds.
Under plans to cut down on census costs, labelled ‘Beyond 2011’, the government could collect data from search engines such as Google.
It would be a controversial move as the company is currently facing criticism for failing to cut down on child porn, and for paying minimal taxes in the UK.
Critics also believe it would be an invasion of privacy, and it raises questions about the Prime Minister’s closeness to Google.
In a bit to cut down census costs, the Office for National Statistics has investigated collecting ‘administrative data' from NHS, tax and benefit records, the electoral register, school and university rolls and other public sources.
But officials also want to use information from the private sector, from companies with databases each covering more than ten million people.
Firms mentioned include Tesco, the E.ON energy supplier, Thames Water, and Nationwide.
The idea of using Google and other search engines to replace the census was raised in a document produced by the Government Statistical Service which will be discussed at a private conference today.
Data could be collected from Google Trends, a publicly available website which shows the most popular searches broken down by subject and location.
Both Google and the ONS told the Daily Mail that the two sides have held no meetings.
A spokesman for Google told the newspaper: “Google Trends is a publicly available service. We would never sell third party information.”
The plans could spell the end of the national census, which was first conducted in 1801 and has been carried out every ten years since, apart from during the Second World War
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