ALT We’ve heard from a number of data users lately who have questions about the status of our plans to strengthen confidentiality safeguards for our data products, including the American Community Survey (ACS), the nation’s premier source for detailed population and housing information. We wanted to provide an update as we continue to evolve these safeguards in the face of challenges posed by the digital world we live in. Our current assessment is that the science does not yet exist to comprehensively implement a formally private solution for the ACS. We expect a multiyear development period, including data user review and feedback, that will extend beyond 2025.

ALT Exploring Alternatives To address some of the known vulnerabilities in the ACS PUMS data product, we are researching the feasibility of creating a high-quality, fully synthetic public-use microdata file and accompanying validation service. This would allow users to verify the validity of analyses run on the microdata file while meeting ACS data users’ needs. These products have several potential benefits to data users, such as including finer geographic detail for both the synthetic data and the validations and allowing users to account for privacy protection in their measures of uncertainty. Once developed, and after user review and feedback, these data products could replace the public ACS PUMS. For the time being, the ACS PUMS data product will still be protected using traditional disclosure avoidance methods. Ultimately, we will develop a comprehensive disclosure avoidance solution that can assess and mitigate the cumulative disclosure risk posed by the separate ACS data...

ALT Picture of Steven Ruggles