How a Home Address Can Determine the Future

Surabaya (ANTARA) - Not all urban problems are visible on the streets. Some are hidden behind a family card, an address no longer occupied, or population data that has fallen far behind reality.

Amid the acceleration of digital public services, this issue is no longer just a matter of administration. An address determines whether a person receives social assistance, accesses healthcare, obtains education, and is included in development planning. When population data no longer reflects actual conditions, the government loses its footing for making sound decisions.

The city of Surabaya, East Java, is currently facing this challenge. Data collection results show that hundreds of thousands of family heads cannot be found at the addresses listed in their population administration records.

This situation serves as a reminder that digital transformation requires not only technology but also public discipline in updating their civil identity.

Modern governance rests on one crucial foundation: accurate data. The more services are connected digitally, the greater the need for up-to-date information.

The Surabaya city government has made population administration the basis for all policy interventions. Health services, education, social assistance, and public protection are all organised based on the alignment between the actual condition of residents and the recorded administrative data.

This principle is known as the conformity between de facto and de jure. It means a person’s place of residence must match the address recorded in the population administration. This alignment is not intended to restrict mobility but to ensure that public services are received by the right people.

The discovery of approximately 169,000 family heads missing from the National Single Social and Economic Data (DTSEN) collection and nearly 200,000 family heads absent from the social protection digitalisation data indicates a gap between data and reality.

These figures are not mere statistics. Behind them lies the potential for misdirected social assistance, difficulties in delivering emergency services, and development planning that no longer reflects the real needs of the community.

Similar problems are actually faced by many regions in Indonesia. High urbanisation means population movement occurs much faster than the updating of civil documents. Many residents move house, living in rented accommodation or boarding houses for years, while their administrative identity remains at their old address.

As a result, the government may assume a certain area is still densely populated when most residents have already moved. Conversely, new areas filled with newcomers are not yet fully reflected in official data, so the provision of public services often does not match the conditions on the ground.

In the era of digital government, the Population Identification Number (NIK) has evolved into a single identity linking various government services. When one piece of data is not updated, the impact can spread to multiple sectors simultaneously, from administrative services to public welfare programmes.