Census data can be published only as collections of statistics, but in an age when companies are collecting so much data about people, even anonymized statistics can present a privacy risk. Using some of this commercial data, census researchers conducted a simulated attack on their data and were able to match as many as 17% of the people who responded to the 2010 census.
The new protections, however, are raising concerns among community advocates, government officials and scholars who note that the method the Census Bureau is using to increase privacy makes the results less accurate. They worry that a more private census may be less useful.
Nicholas Nagle, associate professor of geography at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, studies how to make and use geographic data and has been involved over the past decade in efforts to modernize the 2020 census and make it more cost effective. He sees the importance of striking a balance between protecting our privacy and having accurate statistics for data-based decision-making. Read the full article on The Conversation.
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