How do the census folks know?

Posted this on another board so some of you have seen it already. My son got a letter from the census folks, it stated that since he bought a vehicle last year, they wanted to know what he used it for. He just threw the letter away. I would have responded with a smart *** answer.
Since when do the census people have anything to do with vehicles being bought or sold? Why do they even have access?
He did buy a 2018 truck last year.

I don’t know how they would have known. Here is my feeling on the census.

There is the short form and the long form and people randomly get one or the other. We are supposed to be required to answer certain questions, but the long form is really invasive. It asks questions concerning such as medical insurance, ability to get to the doctor, telephone in the house, bathrooms, etc. Yes, that information is useful for some groups to know so that services may be modified to better serve the public. However, I didn’t care. I looked up the answers on the short form and only filled those out on the long form and left the rest blabk.

Hopefully the link works.

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A little more info, it was asking questions for info that goes to the DOT, Federal highway folks, and a couple of more federal agencies that deal with transportation. Apparently those agencies don’t really have authority to demand answers from private individuals on their vehicles, just commercial. Using the census folks to gather the info implies it’s mandatory, don’t know if it is or not.

The American Community Survey ACS is vital for small and large business development… It helps owners decide where to put retail, restaurants, where roads and schools and hospitals should go. If you only counted heads and didn’t have more granular data on economic activity everyone would suffer and generally pay more when investments don’t get positioned properly. I took GIS classes in college and we downloaded ACS data and analyzed it, it’s very important

Read the Constitution about counting heads, then before you answer market research questions, decide if you want Uncle Sam operating outside it.