The US Census and Differential Privacy

Abstract

The US Census Bureau has growing concern that with the rise of publicly available data on individuals, that information from the census may be at risk for re-identification. As a preemptive measure to mitigate the risk of re-identification the bureau is moving forward with implementing a version of epsilon differential privacy for the 2020 Census. In this panel session my colleague, Lee Fiorio, will outline the bureau’s rough plan for implementation, potential consequences, and give a brief outline of measures we are concerned may be affected by differential privacy.