When Li confirmed, they invited themselves in and locked the 55-year-old former prosecutor in a half-nelson, ransacked his home and confiscated private materials before dragging him away to be detained for more than 30 days in jail and prison in Weinan, a city in Shaanxi Province, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

Wang Guirong, 76, flies a red flag to show her support for the first day of the census on November 1 in the Yuyuan neighborhood complex, Qiaodong district of Xingtai, a prefecture-level city in southern Hebei Province.

Xie's census crime was to publish a book exposing alleged corruption over the Sanmenxia hydropower project in Shaanxi.

Some foreigners are in hiding too after a Beijing statistics bureau deputy director dismissed confidentiality concerns among the expat community: Unregistered foreigners or those staying on an expired visa would be reported to police, Zhang Xueyuan told the Global Times Metro Beijing.

"Of course you will have to get proper registration," Zhang said. "How can you stay here on an expired visa?"

It's not just foreigners who cite concerns about their privacy and protection of personal information: After decades of State-sanctioned communal living where privacy was well nigh impossible, Qiu is suffering first hand the first stirrings of a more assertive individuality spewing forth from her untrusting Shanghainese neighbors.

"Nowadays there are all kinds of door-to-door surveys which most people resent," Duan Chengrong, a demographics professor at Renmin University of China, told the International Herald Leader.

"People are unwilling to cooperate with the census takers for fear of losing their privacy."

Her residents particularly resent the idea of answering specifics about their work and marital history which they feel infringe upon their privacy, Qiu says.

These "misunderstandings" are inevitable, concedes Yu Xuming, deputy director of Shanghai Census Office.

"We can understand the concerns of residents as people's sense of privacy has increased a lot among citizens in China," Yu says.

"But we also believe most people should understand and support the census because it will benefit everyone eventually."

"All we need is to know who is living in a certain apartment and whether they own or rent it for the pre-count. Properties, income or marital status are not on the census question list."

Sometimes police assist census-takers in knocking at the door together, Yu says, "because we want residents to feel safe."

Open the door & let them in

Census-takers can't enter your home without permission, Yu says.

The international method involving the mailing of census forms and stricter standards of confidentiality is unsuited to China's actual conditions, Yu explains.

"China is too big to conduct the census in that way," he says. "Mail cannot reach many areas and we can't guarantee 100 percent of that mail will come back with effective information.

"Thus we have to do it our way."