In the Bowels of the Information Machine: Population Registration and the Impact of Computers on Personal Privacy and Public Administration

The German population registration system was the core of the population identification, information, and control system constructed across the 20th century. However, the functioning of the system also raised questions about how personal information was to be gathered, integrated with other bodies of personal information, and then used for population surveillance. This article examines the hopes associated with the late-1960s proposal to automate the local population registries and link them to create a national population information system and analyzes contemporary accounts of the impact of such integrated systems on the information flowing through them and the structure of complex organizations.