The U.S. Census Bureau Adopts Differential Privacy

TLDR

The 2018 End‑to‑End Census Test is a dress rehearsal for the 2020 Census, and internal research revealed that prior statistical disclosure limitation systems were vulnerable to reconstruction attacks. The Bureau aimed to protect E2E test publications by developing a differentially private system that mitigates those vulnerabilities while preserving the integrity of core statistical products. The system, announced by the Scientific Advisory Committee, will be deployed in the 2020 Census after successful E2E testing and applies differential privacy to safeguard data releases.

Abstract

The U.S. Census Bureau announced, via its Scientific Advisory Committee, that it would protect the publications of the 2018 End-to-End Census Test (E2E) using differential privacy. The E2E test is a dress rehearsal for the 2020 Census, the constitutionally mandated enumeration of the population used to reapportion the House of Representatives and redraw every legislative district in the country. Systems that perform successfully in the E2E test are then used in the production of the 2020 Census. Motivation: The Census Bureau conducted internal research that confirmed that the statistical disclosure limitation systems used for the 2000 and 2010 Censuses had serious vulnerabilities that were exposed by the Dinur and Nissim (2003) database reconstruction theorem. We designed a differentially private publication system that directly addressed these vulnerabilities while preserving the fitness for use of the core statistical products.