Census Bureau's use of 'synthetic data' worries researchers

Some researchers are up in arms about a U.S. Census Bureau proposal to add privacy protections by manipulating numbers in the data most widely used for economic and demographic research

ORLANDO, Fla. -- First came the “noise” — small errors the U.S. Census Bureau decided to introduce into the 2020 census data to protect participants' privacy. Now the bureau is looking into “synthetic data,” manipulating the numbers widely used for economic and demographic research, to obscure the identities of people who provided information. The moves have some researchers up in arms, worried that the statistical agency could sacrifice accuracy in its zeal to protect privacy. Census Bureau statisticians disclosed at a virtual conference last week that over the next three years they will work toward developing a method to create “synthetic data" for files on individuals and homes that already are devoid of personalized information. These files, known as American Community Survey microdata, are used by researchers to create customized tables tailored to their research. Census Bureau statisticians said more privacy protections are needed as technological innovations magnify the threat of people being identified through their survey answers, which are confidential. Computing power is now so vast that it can easily crunch third-party data sets that combine personal information from credit rating and social media companies, purchasing records, voting patterns and public documents, among other things.