Related papers: The 2020 US Decennial Census is more private than …
In early 2021, the US Census Bureau will begin releasing statistical tables based on the decennial census conducted in 2020. Because of significant changes in the data landscape, the Census Bureau is changing its approach to disclosure…
In an era where external data and computational capabilities far exceed statistical agencies' own resources and capabilities, they face the renewed challenge of protecting the confidentiality of underlying microdata when publishing…
In 2017, the United States Census Bureau announced that because of high disclosure risk in the methodology (data swapping) used to produce tabular data for the 2010 census, a different protection mechanism based on differential privacy…
In the face of increasingly severe privacy threats in the era of data and AI, the US Census Bureau has recently adopted differential privacy, the de facto standard of privacy protection for the 2020 Census release. Enforcing differential…
When the U.S. Census Bureau announced its intention to modernize its disclosure avoidance procedures for the 2020 Census, it sparked a controversy that is still underway. The move to differential privacy introduced technical and procedural…
The 2020 Decennial Census will be released with a new disclosure avoidance system in place, putting differential privacy in the spotlight for a wide range of data users. We consider several key applications of Census data in redistricting,…
The U.S. Census Bureau collects and publishes detailed demographic data about Americans which are heavily used by researchers and policymakers. The Bureau has recently adopted the framework of differential privacy in an effort to improve…
Data from the Decennial Census is published only after applying a disclosure avoidance system (DAS). Data users were shaken by the adoption of differential privacy in the 2020 DAS, a radical departure from past methods. The goal of this…
This article describes a proposed differentially private (DP) algorithms that the US Census Bureau is considering to release the Detailed Demographic and Housing Characteristics (DHC) Race & Ethnicity tabulations as part of the 2020 Census.…
The U.S. Census Bureau is using differential privacy (DP) to protect confidential respondent data collected for the 2020 Decennial Census of Population & Housing. The Census Bureau's DP system is implemented in the Disclosure Avoidance…
The concept of differential privacy (DP) has gained substantial attention in recent years, most notably since the U.S. Census Bureau announced the adoption of the concept for its 2020 Decennial Census. However, despite its attractive…
McCartan et al. (2023) call for "making differential privacy work for census data users." This commentary explains why the 2020 Census Noisy Measurement Files (NMFs) are not the best focus for that plea. The August 2021 letter from 62…
Agencies, such as the U.S. Census Bureau, release data sets and statistics about groups of individuals that are used as input to a number of critical decision processes. To conform to privacy and confidentiality requirements, these agencies…
The US Census Bureau plans to protect the privacy of 2020 Census respondents through its Disclosure Avoidance System (DAS), which attempts to achieve differential privacy guarantees by adding noise to the Census microdata. By applying…
This article describes the disclosure avoidance algorithm that the U.S. Census Bureau used to protect the 2020 Census Supplemental Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (S-DHC). The tabulations contain statistics of counts of U.S.…
This paper is motivated by applications of a Census Bureau interested in releasing aggregate socio-economic data about a large population without revealing sensitive information about any individual. The released information can be the…
Data collected about individuals is regularly used to make decisions that impact those same individuals. We consider settings where sensitive personal data is used to decide who will receive resources or benefits. While it is well known…
This article describes the disclosure avoidance algorithm that the U.S. Census Bureau used to protect the Detailed Demographic and Housing Characteristics File A (Detailed DHC-A) of the 2020 Census. The tabulations contain statistics…
The US Decennial Census provides valuable data for both research and policy purposes. Census data are subject to a variety of disclosure avoidance techniques prior to release in order to preserve respondent confidentiality. While many are…
In a technical treatment, this article establishes the necessity of transparent privacy for drawing unbiased statistical inference for a wide range of scientific questions. Transparency is a distinct feature enjoyed by differential privacy:…