April 7, 2021 Commerce Secretary Raimondo defends census privacy method

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Wednesday defended a controversial privacy technique being used by the U.S. Census Bureau in the 2020 census, a method the agency promised would only make small changes to actual numbers in counts of racial and ethnic groups. The technique called “differential privacy" adds mathematical “noise,” or errors, to the data to obscure any given individual’s identity while still providing statistically valid information. Bureau officials say the change is needed to prevent data miners from matching individuals to confidential details that have been rendered anonymous in the massive data release expected as early as August. It will be applied to race, age and other demographic information in geographic areas within each state.