ACS
Updates on Disclosure
Avoidance and Release Plans
RESEARCH
MATTERS BLOG
AUG.
20, 2020
Written
By: Dr. John M. Abowd, chief
scientist and associate
director for Research and
Methodology, and Donna M.
Daily, chief, American
Community Survey Office
Despite
changes and delays during this
unprecedented time, we are
happy to report that the U.S.
Census Bureau is on track to
release the 2019 American
Community Survey (ACS) 1-year
estimates as scheduled Sept.
17, 2020. Check out our
website for the full
data release schedule and
other details.
As
we prepare to release the 2019
ACS products, we want to
remind data users of our
commitment to protect
respondent privacy and
confidentiality. Prior
blogs outlined steps the
Census Bureau is taking to
modernize the procedures we
use to protect respondent
data. Our adoption of formal
privacy will allow us to
strengthen safeguards and
increase transparency about
the impact of privacy
protections on data accuracy.
As
Deputy Director Ron Jarmin previously
stated, we do not plan
to implement formal privacy
for the full suite of ACS data
products before 2025. In the
interim, we will continue to
evaluate existing privacy
protections and bolster them
as necessary to address
privacy risks that emerge. Our
goal is to maintain the
utility of the ACS as the
preeminent federal survey for
federal, state and local data
users, while remaining
committed to our legal
obligations to protect
confidentiality.
One
area where we are
strengthening our disclosure
avoidance methods is the count
of final interviews published
in our quality measures and
other detailed tables. We will
continue to publish the
quality measures tables that
provide this information for select
geographies. But we are
discontinuing the tables that
included this information for
all geographies.[1]
In addition, we are adding
“noise” to the interview
counts to cut the risk of
disclosure while still
providing a general indicator
of data quality for the
geography of interest. We will
continue to publish the
household sample sizes
selected for invitation to
complete the ACS, without
added noise or rounding. The
reason: These sample sizes are
properties of the ACS design,
not its realized sample, and
provide a more robust
indicator of data quality for
very small geographies.
Table
B98001 (Unweighted Housing
Unit Sample) will be published
for nation, state, county and
place in both the 1-year and
5-year ACS beginning with the
2019 ACS release. Previously,
the table was not published
for places in the 1-year ACS.
A new table will be created of
final person interviews, which
will be released for nation,
state, county and place in the
1-year and 5-year ACS. This
will provide the same
information as the former
B00001, but will be restricted
to the same summary levels as
B98001.
The
Census Bureau has a
tradition and public
expectation of producing
high quality statistics
while protecting the
confidentiality of
respondents. We will work
closely with our
scientific and data user
communities as we explore
options for modernizing
ACS privacy protections
while ensuring the data
products’ continued high
quality and
fitness-for-use. The
Census Bureau is funding
collaboration
opportunities with
external researchers on
the issue of formal
privacy for sample
surveys. A key deliverable
of such collaboration will
be establishing effective
data user engagement. We
will provide more
information about this
effort as it becomes
available.
Send
comments or questions to
<ACSprivacy@census.gov>.
[1]
These data were
published in B00001
and B00002 in the
1-year and 5-year ACS
products as well as
K200001 and K200002 in
the 1-year
supplemental ACS
product.
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