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Monday 18 February 2019

Potential privacy lapse found in Americans’ 2010 census data

BY SETH BORENSTEIN and that every census im-
AP Science Writer proves. He lauded the new
WASHINGTON (AP) — An in- steps.
ternal team at the Census Former agency chief Ken-
Bureau found that basic neth Prewitt, a professor of
personal information col- policy at Columbia Univer-
lected from more than 100 sity, said the basic informa-
million Americans during tion such as age and eth-
the 2010 head count could nicity, even if publicly re-
be reconstructed from ob- vealed, isn’t as big a deal
scured data, but with lots as other data breaches.
of mistakes, a top agency “There is a widespread
official disclosed Saturday. privacy anxiety out there
The age, gender, loca- that is very much related
tion, race and ethnicity for to Facebook and Google
138 million people were and so forth,” Prewitt said.
potentially vulnerable. So “I’m much more worried
far, however, only internal about the fact that my
hacking teams have dis- iPhone follows me around
covered such details at every day.” In a statement,
possible risk, and no outside Apple’s Fred Sainz took is-
groups are known to have This March 23, 2018, file photo shows an envelope containing a 2018 census letter mailed to a U.S. sue with such privacy con-
grabbed data intended to resident as part of the nation’s only test run of the 2020 Census. cerns: “The iPhone doesn’t
remain private for 72 years, Associated Press follow you around all day
chief scientist John Abowd avoid answering or lie on sus count is hugely impor- the Census Bureau did this long — Apple has no idea
told a scientific confer- the once-every-10-year sur- tant, helping with the allo- by swapping similar house- where you are nor do we
ence. The Census Bureau is vey because of the Trump cation of seats in the House hold information from one care. And Apple does not
now scrapping its old data administration’s attempt to of Representatives and dis- city to another, according sell information to com-
shielding technique for a add a much-debated citi- tribution of billions of dollars to Duke University statistics panies.” He noted, how-
state-of-the-art method zenship question. in federal money. professor Jerome Reiter. ever, that consumers can
that Abowd claimed is far The Supreme Court on The 8 billion pieces of statis- In the internal tests, Abowd choose apps that know
better than Google’s or Friday announced that tics in census data are sup- said, officials were able to their location. Abowd said
Apple’s. it would rule on that pro- posed to jumbled in a way match of 45 percent of the “the 2020 census will be the
Some former agency posed question, which has so what is released publicly people who answered the safest and best protect-
chiefs fear the potential been criticized for being for research cannot identi- 2010 census with informa- ed ever. And this is not as
privacy problem will add to political and not properly fy individuals for more than tion from public and com- easy as it sounds.” The new
the worries that people will tested in the field. The cen- seven decades. In 2010, mercial data sets such as system involves complex
Facebook. But errors in this mathematical algorithms
technique meant that only that inject “noise” into the
data for 52 million people data, making it harder
would be completely cor- to get accurate informa-
rect — little more than 1-in- tion and providing “a very
6 of the U.S. population. strong guarantee” of pri-
He said the 2010 census vacy, said Duke University
used the best possible pri- computer sciences profes-
vacy protection available, sor Ashwin Machanavajj-
but hackers since then hala. This increases privacy
have become more skilled while lowering the accu-
in reconstructing data. To racy for researchers who
counter their growing abili- use the statistics. Think of it
ties, the agency has com- as one set of knobs being
pletely changed the sys- dialed up while a second
tem for 2020 and will offer is dialed down at the same
the “gold standard” of pri- time. The decision on the
vacy regardless of the fate official privacy/accuracy
of the citizenship question, setting for 2020 hasn’t been
Abowd said. set. Abowd said policy of-
People “want to know that ficials, not engineers or sci-
statistical tables aren’t go- entists, will make that call.
ing to come back and The Census Bureau tried
haunt them,” Abowd said this system in a 2018 sur-
at the American Asso- vey using an ultra-strict
ciation for the Advance- privacy setting that, while
ment of Science’s annual not directly comparable
meeting. “I promise the to Google or Apple, is
American people they will hundreds if not thousands
have the privacy that they of times more secure for
deserve.” Georgetown privacy than what’s now
University provost Robert being used on data from
Groves, who headed the searches using Google
2010 census, said the count Chrome or Apple’s iPhone,
had the proper privacy Duke’s Reiter said.q