I received mine and would not have an issue with privacy if it didn't ask for name, date of birth, address, finances, etc. Just wanting the info for statistics, then ask non-personal questions. Besides, how can I feel comfortable with the promise of not being hacked when feds can't figure out a balloting system that's being used for how many years. Not getting the warm and fuzzies on this one. Big Brother is here .
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Went to the census lecture on this. Confused me then. This sort of clears it up. Abowd deserves the Nobel prize for his work on disclosure.
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Why is Dr. John Abowd referred to as "Mr.?!" He has a PhD in Economics.
Or the census could revert to its original, Consitutionally-defined mission, and simply count the number of people resident in a household. Not much personaly data to worry about then (and not much institutionalized identity politics).
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This is a bizarro-world Catch 22. We need accurate data....but we need to protect it...so we need to make it less accurate. Good luck explaining that to the non-academic types and unwashed masses that are actually providing the data...not that many of them will care. It is sort of in the same vein as needing to destroy the village in order to protect it. According to the University of Minnesota paper, throughout all of history there are exactly Zero documented cases of successful “re-identification attacks” attributable to the census data. This is mainly because no self-respecting Dark Lord of Data Mining would ever bother with it when there are far richer targets out there. (What unique information about me are they going to glean from the census data? How many toilets I have in my house?). As such, it begins to sound more and more like typical un-drained swamp bureaucracy— myopic promotion and application of an impractical “solution” to a non-problem, the consequences of which have adverse impacts on parties that are meant to be served. I’ll take my census data without any fillers and artificial preservatives, thank you very much.
Interesting that the US Census Bureau expresses concern about reporting data as being "too accurate".
I would be much more interested in hearing that they have finally begun to study reporting of data that one cannot associate at all with the word "accurate", the placing of us Americans in race and ethnicity boxes.
The USCB's former Director, Kenneth Prewitt, celebrated his move from the USCB to being a Columbia Professor by publishing the essential book on The Census: "What Is Your Race? The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans."
The USCB uses archaic categories invented by racists going far back in time, with the most archaic of all the simple either or system, you are either black or white or, even worse, black AND white.
Prewitt argues in Chapter 11 that the USCB should be reporting more and better SES data while putting race and ethnicity in history's waste basket.
Consider these final words from "Taking race out of human genetics," Science 05 Feb 2016:
"We believe the use of biological concepts of race in human genetic research—so disputed and so mired in confusion—is problematic at best and harmful at worst. It is time for biologists to find a better way."
The same applies to use of black race/white race as variables in American medical research.
USCB, enter the 21st Century, please, NY Times also.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Should we have a trade-off between confidentiality and security? I suppose it's inevitable, but it makes me uneasy.
Census records are too important as a basis for representation and distribution of tax money, as well as for genealogical records to permit them to be inaccurate. At the same time, it would be nice if my personal data were protected somewhere, which seems unlikely in the current digital age.
Canada tried this during the previous Conservative government.
It turned out a non fact based census was worse than no census at all.
But it's up to you. You are the USA after all and know better than the rest of us.
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I suspect that the politicization of this census will introduce enough noise without any help from the statisticians. Is "Martin" an ethnicity selection?
@Maggie
"Martin" should be "Martian"
On a related issue, the gov't could save a fortune if instead of doing the massive job they do on the Census, use modern sampling techniques that are as about as accurate if they have a large enough sample.
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@Paul
Unfortunately, the Constitution requires a Census.
The government doesn't have a choice.
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@Dejah-Thank you for your reply. Actually my post is not an issue. It would still be a census. The constitution does not stipulate how it should be done.
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@Paul - Good comment. There is no need to waste billions on a separate "Census" when sufficient data are now available from other sources.
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The census is attempting to go too far. Their job is to count people. Census, that is your job, count.
Gather information perhaps as to gender and age and that's it. Everything else is an invasion of privacy.
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Keeping recent Census data private? Disconnect from online for 72 years.
In none of the discussions about changes to the collection of census data does anyone mention its importance to genealogists and people trying to trace their family history. Census data is the bedrock on which family trees are built. From 1860 to 1940, the US Census data has consistently included at least name, approximate date of birth, and city and state of residence for all those in the household, although other questions have changed over the years. From 1790 to 1940, only the name of head of household was recorded. This basic data is invaluable in tracing the history of families. The data is almost all for dead people because the release of each decade's data is delayed for 72 years, so the privacy of living people is protected. The data for 1950 will not be released until 2022. If the accuracy of the data collected is compromised, I fear for the future of genealogy. Surely privacy of the living can be protected by limiting the content of reports that are released earlier without compromising the underlying data.
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@Sandra The proposal will not affect the accuracy of the actual data collected by the enumerators. That has always and will remain 100% unchanged, safely stored, to be made available to the public 72 years in the future. What differential privacy will affect are the aggregated tabulations and person-level research files that are released between now and 72 years from now. These are invaluable and essential resources for researchers, hence the concern that "blurring" the data might have a negative impact on their accuracy.
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@Sandra
In the middle of your comment, I think that you mean "From 1790 to 1840" rather than "From 1790 to 1940".
It's awfully nice to know that someone in the federal government cares about our privacy enough to disguise us, and as someone whose computer has been hacked and whose house has been burgled, I have no concern for marketers, advertisers and others who want my information.
To me, the standard of risk to my privacy is of far greater importance than "usability." I do understand the concern that sociologists, historians, and, again, the marketers and advertisers might lose their edge, but the thought is quite refreshing.
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A wonderful report - and educational.
Many thanks.
I am a CALTECH graduate engineer with over 40 years of oil patch experience - and was involved in a large data base collection and build up to draw conclusions so managers could make decisions.
Of course, that data base was on our wells and used within a company - though some coclusions were shared with industry at seminars, conferences.
I had never heard of this differential confidentiality.
But to me, it makes perfect sense - based on report here.
As an aside, I think - given data breaches - our census bureau seems to bend over backwards - to do more to protect than even - as reported - Fakebook seems to be doing.
Government works.
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Whatever the Bureau does, many will perceive the Census as intrusive and try to refuse it. So it might as well try to get good data. The “required by law” bit on the envelope might help, though. When I worked for the Bureau I had to deal with doors slammed in face, doors that didn’t open though people were home, people who thought it was a scam, etc. I kind of doubt that “differential privacy” is going to make make much difference to those people, one way or another.
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"if you make a guess about someone’s identity from looking at census data, you are probably wrong."
Statements like this from university profs are troubling - it is at best misleading and at worst absolutely wrong. The previous several paras explain exactly why the quote is inaccurate.
And just in passing - when did the census' primary role to feed researcher's data for their personal projects?
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Thanks to our dedicated public servants, who after years of furloughs, political acrimony, and salary freezes, are still dedicated to serving our country with the best, most secure data possible.
Of course people will complain, because they don't want to pay taxes and have to justify their selfishness. But I work in analytics and I can say that this is far ahead of the game. Not only have the census workers talked about security, but they have investigated it and fixed it.
Thank you!
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One of the most important functions of census is the distribution of federal funding. Census data is also essential for emergency response planning and education projections at the local level.
As for the proposed citizenship question, like others have stated, I have no intention of answering it.
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During WWII the census shared data with Army to identify Japanese citizens of the US, who were shipped to internment camps, virtually all of them lost their livelihoods, health and valued possessions, a loss for which they were never fairly compensated. Not exactly a shining moment. Differential privacy may help deter extra-governmental bad actors. Even more needed is an iron-clad procedure and guarantee that will restrain the government from using census data to act badly. Bad actions that may only be recognized and "repaired" many years later, if at all. For the present, what use is being made of census data to inflict harm on non-white, non-christian citizens of the US?
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@Mynheer Peeperkorn
You are on point, racist Trump wants to “encourage” non-whites to self deport...and then they’ll continue with their unlawful deportations...just on a larger scale. There is a lot to fear here.
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@Mynheer Peeperkorn Unfortunately, differential privacy will do nothing to prevent the government from using census data for dubious purposes. Differential privacy never changes the actual, underlying data collected by the enumerators. It only affect tabulations and person-level data released to the research community. If the government truly wanted to find out the responses of specific individuals, they could, simply by going to the raw census forms themselves (although this would involve violating certain laws). This is why the citizenship question is so controversial - differential privacy or not, that information would always be available, somewhere.
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Just make the "census blocks" bigger. There's no law that says census data has to be available to researchers and advertisers in block by block increments.
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I will not be filling out a census form in the next census, just as I didn’t in 2010. The government has shown that the within a few hours of entering your data in its computers it is stolen. Just one less data leak to worry about. Well, that’s my new excuse for not doing it.
Honestly, I much enjoy the visits from the follow-up census taker they send out. She rings the doorbell and stands there on my front step. I look out the window and pretend I can’t understand her, and decline to open the door. She eventually leaves. A week later she comes back, and the process is repeated. Eventually, she stops coming.
I mean look, I’m a 62-year-old white guy, almost retired, married to a white woman of the same vintage. It isn’t as if anyone is interested in counting us except at election time. And we always, always vote. And yes, I will leave the neighborhood to enroll in Medicare and apply for my Social Security in a few years.
Minor-league rebelliousness, sure, but it helps me pass the time.
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@Duane Coyle
You are running up the cost of the census for the rest of us hardworking taxpayers. A mail response is so much cheaper. If you don’t respond they will estimate your data based other data from you (irs). People like you make the results less accurate which hurts everyone. Do your civic duty.
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@rjb Absolutely correct. This always mystifies me— people playing “games” with the government and then turning around and complaining about their taxes being too high. This guy has no problem with the government when he is ready to “enroll in Medicare and apply for my Social Security” but when it comes time to reciprocate he plays games. You think the census-taker wants to be on your front step anymore than you want them there?
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@Duane Coyle - and your two repliers. Really strange here today, Reader Pick no. 1 has 10 recommendations and of course none of the 10 tell us why they clicked on recommend.
At least here in Sweden I won't be visited by any census taker but I know that when I do not check a race box some census person may insert white - the former Director told me this in an Email.
What does white tell us. Not much. People from the Middle East who have become citizens are white just as is Donald Trump. I'll take the MEs but not because they belong to a fictional race but because all the many I know here in SE are far more interesting and human than the American president.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
I understand but find a lot of the privacy concern almost laughable. With the rise of the internet more people know more about us than the government. Still we fear government more than our online presence, purchase history, shared information on social media,...
FWIW: The census department does not have prosecution powers and, from what I've learned, regularly processes incomplete forms and counts those as well. Don't like the citizenship question? Then don't answer it! Will you get prosecuted? Highly unlikely, in fact the more people that don't answer that, or any other objectionable question, the less likely that the census department will use it again.
Lastly: We the People are "The Government" all those elected and appointed people work for us. Perhaps our elected officials should learn to stand up when we enter the room, after all we're their boss.
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I have commented that when the NSA was gathering data on U.S. inhabitants we all rightly and justly complained about the violation of privacy. However, companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and more collect 100x that every day, and we not only say nothing, we seem universally complacent about it.
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@George N. Wells “The census department does not have prosecution powers...”. Not totally true. They just haven’t used them. So, yes, the risk is “highly unlikely”...but so is the risk of being audited...or of a hurricane dumping 50” of rain on Houston. Stuff happens and things change. You think this administration is beyond selectively prosecuting people for not completing the census?
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